“Look, universities fancy themselves to be egalitarian beams of light,” Jep said. “I don’t think that would be a factor, either way. Just don’t try to keep it from anybody who asks, but don’t volunteer either. Anyway, how could they turn down Father Nature? I bet you have more experience than most of the people who already graduated from that program.”
Now that he was in, he had gone right over to worrying about how he would manage it. The program would be a heavy load, because he was unwilling to give up his best clients, plus the work for Rebecca if it happened, though he would have to work only part-time, mostly on weekends, with the help of two high-school kids he trained and trusted. Jep and I had faith that most of the time-management stuff that would be new to the other students was already Stefan’s daily bread.
At least, he said that day, he wouldn’t have time for the steady girl he didn’t have.
Stefan finally roused himself to go back to work, and I waved goodbye as he pulled away, then went in and finally called Becky. As it turned out, she was glad to hear from me. She begged me to come to dinner at the big house that very night...yes, it was kind of a free-for-all, but the women competed to outdo each other in the culinary arts and tonight was Cuban night, not to be missed. So I agreed.
When I got there, Rebecca gave me the tour. Inside, the place looked gorgeous. Each of the four renovated “pods,” two bedrooms separated by a lush shared bath, was decorated in a different, vibrant shade—peach, tangerine, eggplant. The big rooms downstairs were equally pretty and comfortable with wide welcoming sofas and scattered rocking chairs, built-in shelves crammed with books and whimsical ceramics, islands of plants, including a huge lemon tree festooned with fruit, and stereo speakers that piped music all over the first floor. Just the environment itself could hardly fail to lift a person’s spirits. From there it would be easier to motivate the residents to take better care of themselves and their peers. One corner was given over to Alzy’s grand piano, and a painting of her took pride of place on the wall behind it. She was seated on a porch swing, barefoot but dressed formally, I realized with a shock, in the dress she had worn in her coffin.
We sat outside on that same porch swing, as the setting sun dragged away the day’s heat. Then Becky told me her news: She was pregnant, eight months.
“What? You can’t even tell!”
“I know you can’t. People just think I’ve gained some weight. This is the gift of being five feet ten and, as my mom so delicately says, big-boned.”
“I mean you really can’t tell.”
“Well, you haven’t seen me without these artful garments.” She pulled back her long tunic, and yes, she most certainly was quite convex.
“Are you sure you have your dates right?” I asked and then added, “I didn’t even know you were in love.”
“I am, with this guy right here,” she said, pointing to her belly. “But I must admit I never met the papa. I picked him out of a book for his great brains and curly hair. So I know I have my dates right, down to the hour. I’m thirty and I know that’s not old for having a first kid, but it just seems like the right time for me. If I ever meet my grown-up prince, he’s going to have to consider little boys value added.”
“You already knew you were going to do this when you came to Stefan with your idea.”
“I was pretty sure I was going to do it. That was a big factor in why I wrote to him. I wanted to make myself right with the universe before I welcomed my son into it.”
“You’ll have lots of aunties to fuss over him.”
“I didn’t count on that part! They already fuss over me! I gained no weight for the first few months, but twenty-five pounds in the past two months. I may not show much, but I feel the size of a sumo wrestler. I feel like my body gets across the room before my brain catches up to it.”
“Are you going to stay here after the baby is born?”
Becky said, “Of course. This is my house, and it’s my home. And it’s my job. I’m going to have someone help me with the day-to-day for the first few months.”
“Are you worried about living with...?”
“With addicts? I’m not. Are you worried about living with Stefan? Of course you’re not,” Rebecca said. “But don’t feel bad for wondering. It’s a legitimate question.” She added, “None of these women was ever violent, Thea. The only ones they hurt were themselves.”
We ate ropa vieja, black beans and rice with tomatoes and corn fritters with the residents with crema Catalana and espresso to follow. These women could cook. Seeing them sitting there in the candlelight, the youngest a freckled twenty-two-year-old, the oldest in her fifties, with a froth of silver hair that fell past her shoulders, it was difficult to imagine any of them so desperate for a drink that they had lost families, careers, homes. It hadn’t occurred to me when I called Becky that we would be having dinner with them, and that all of them would know my son’s role in The Healing Project and its establishment of The Alice Hodge Safe Home. About that part, they could not have seemed more grateful or complimentary. A couple of them were local, and knew about Stefan’s history. A few had watched the public television episode we had shot at our house. Another had seen a photo of Belinda with Stefan as part of the Mother’s Day broadcast of Say Her Name, a PBS special last year about college girls killed by their boyfriends, including Belinda, and Jill’s activism against domestic partner abuse.
“It must be so hard,” said the beautiful woman with the cloud of silver hair.
“It is,” I admitted. “It’s getting better, but it will never go away.”
“You probably feel so guilty. It’s not your fault.”
I didn’t know where to look or what to say. The expectant silence stretched. I half expected Becky to jump in and throw up some kind of conversational diversion. When she didn’t, I realized that this was a house where banter had no place and deep revelations were everyday fare.
“I struggled with that. We both still do. I felt remiss for not knowing everything my own son was involved in.”
“But you raised him,” said Margo, one of the younger women, a kindergarten teacher who had nearly died from liver damage. “As a mother, wouldn’t you ask yourself, what should I have done? If he was abusing her all that time.”
Should I correct her? I knew how it would sound. These were AA women, who knelt on the Twelve Steps like stations of the cross, and they brooked no excuses.
“He didn’t abuse her. That is what some people believe. That is what Belinda’s mother believes. But I believe that whatever violence happened that night, however it happened, happened just that once.”
“What did happen?” asked Margo.
Again, their blunt inquiry left me speechless. I glanced at Becky, who made the slightest gesture of a shrug. “Belinda died from a blow to the head with a golf club,” she said. “Thea, do you want to add more about that?”
“Well, I wasn’t there. I don’t know all the details,” I said, thinking, what will they think when they find out that it was really Esme? Please, I thought, please let there be a chance that it was. And then, shamed, I was reminded that, if it was true, another family would be devastated, as mine had been. “Stefan has no memory of that night. Some impressions but no clear memory. He was...he’d taken a cocktail of drugs.”
“He blames the drugs. Your son.”
“It’s not that simple.”
Margo said, “But he’s right to some degree. Drugs wreck lives. Booze wrecks lives. This poor girl’s death, another gift of substance use. My kids are only five and seven, and I can’t see them except for a couple of hours on the weekend with my ex present. I’m not there for them. They need me. I was sober for five years. Why didn’t I try harder to think? Before I went out?”
“You’re thinking now,” said another woman. “Margo, your best thinking got you here.”