Chapter Thirty-four
Judy found herself parked in the dark in front of Frank’s grandfather’s rowhouse, without remembering having driven here. She wiped her tears with her sleeve, then went into the console and found some napkins, which she used to dry her eyes and blow her juicy nose, hard and noisily. She knew Frank was still awake because the light was on in the front window, and through the old-school sheer curtains, she could see the bright colors of the TV, undoubtedly tuned to Monday Night Football. She looked around the skinny side street and spotted Cartman’s Jeep parked under a streetlight up ahead, so that meant the boys were over, watching the game again.
She tossed the napkin aside, eased back into the driver’s seat, and tried to decide what to do. She must have wanted to see Frank because she’d driven here, but she hadn’t realized the game would be on and she didn’t know how it would go down if she went inside. The last thing she wanted was an instant replay, no pun intended, and she knew she must look a mess. She shifted up in her seat and checked the rearview mirror, taken aback at her reflection, even in the dim light. It wasn’t only that her eyes, nose, and lips were red and puffy, but for the first time in her life, she looked at her own face through new eyes, as if she had never seen herself before.
She frowned at her eye color, which she had always thought were a china blue like her father’s, but now she realized she had no idea what her father looked like. Everyone always said that her mouth was clearly from her mother, but Judy would have to start clarifying the term mother, because she was still thinking of her mother as her mother, when her aunt was really her mother.
She scrutinized her face, pondering her features as if each one were a cardboard piece from a jigsaw puzzle, trying to match her turned-up nose to her Aunt Barb’s nose and wondering where her cheekbones fit, because they could have come from a total stranger, who also happened to be dead. Judy felt tears well up again, but she pressed them away. She couldn’t sit out here forever and she couldn’t overthink it.
She grabbed her purse, got out of the car, and chirped it locked while she walked up to the front door, with its three steps of worn grayish marble. Like the other rowhouses on the street, they were of red brick, with one front window on the first floor, and two above that, then a flat tar roof with a satellite dish aimed for maximum sports reception. South Philly was Mary DiNunzio territory, and Judy didn’t fit in here, but she wasn’t sure she fit in anywhere, after her conversation with her mother. Then she reminded herself that her mother wasn’t her mother anymore, and her real mother had breast cancer, which made her sick at heart. She’d already lost one mother and she didn’t know if she could lose another.
Judy set aside her emotions and knocked on the front door, remembering the first time she had been here, when she represented Frank’s grandfather Pigeon Tony, on a case. She’d been delighted to meet her new client’s hunky grandson, who had swept her off her feet, and while she waited for Frank to answer the door, she wondered if those old feelings were still there, or if they weren’t, if she could get them back.
“Babe!” Frank said, opening the door. “Come in!”
“Hi, sure.” Judy tried to get her bearings, knowing that it was still dark enough on the stoop for him not to be able to see her clearly. She could hear the noise of the football game and the boys talking inside. “Do you think we can get a minute alone? I just want to talk to you.”
“Totally, sure!” Frank was already reaching for her, giving her a hug, and sweeping her inside the little entrance hall, which was divided from the living room by a panel of ridged glass. But when he let her go, he did a double-take, his eyes widening in surprise, then anger. “What happened? Who hit you?”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” Cartman called out. “WHO HIT WHO?”
“Cartman, shut up!” Frank shouted over his shoulder, then put a strong arm around Judy.
“Frank,” Judy whispered, “nobody hit me, but can we go somewhere and talk?”
“Come with me, out back.”
“Good.” Judy kept her head turned, letting Frank run interference for her with the boys and lead her through the tiny dining room and kitchen, then he flicked on the outside light and opened the back door.
“Thanks.” Judy stepped into the backyard, a small, rectangular plot of grass, surrounded by whitewashed cinderblock, with two plastic lattice beach chairs in front of a loft that Frank’s grandfather had made for his homing pigeons. The loft was about thirty feet long, with a white framed-wire cage on all four sides, containing forty-odd snow-white doves, and reddish-brown Meulemanns and Janssens.
“What happened, baby?” Frank asked, aghast. He touched her arm, tilting her toward him as he looked at her face. “What the hell? Were you mugged? I’ll kill him!”
“I didn’t get mugged,” Judy began, but she wasn’t sure what to say next. She slipped from his grasp, drawn to the loft. Inside the pigeons fluttered this way and that, disturbed by the sudden light and the presence of people, so late. They cooed and called to each other, their wings beating against the wire walls, shedding fuzzy underfeathers that flew around in the quiet night air, sailing on invisible currents. “God, I love these birds.”
“What happened, hon?” Frank followed her to the loft, linking his fingers through the cage wire.
“I’m fine, but it’s a long story. It’s been a long day and night, starting with Aunt Barb’s operation.” Judy watched as the birds began to find their mates, because homing pigeons were bonded pairs, mated for life. They settled down together, two by two, tucking their white wings neatly at their sides, puffing out their chests, their eyes red and perfectly round, complementing their dark pink, scaly legs. Judy used to let them perch on her fingers, surprised at the warmth of their feet.
“Judy, who hit you? Was it the guys who attacked you at your aunt’s? Are they stalking you? Because if the police won’t do anything about it, I will.”
“The police are all over it, but thanks.”
“You don’t want to tell me about it?”
“Honestly, I don’t want to talk about it.” Judy felt that what had happened at the barracks was old news compared with the conversation with her mother, which she needed to hash out with somebody. She watched the birds without seeing them anymore, losing focus. “I had a weird discussion with my mother, though.”
“Tell me what happened to your lip, then tell me about your mom.”
“My lip doesn’t matter, my mom does.”
“Your lip matters to me.” Frank frowned. “I can’t let people take shots at you and get away with it.”
“Listen, I appreciate it, but that’s not what’s on my mind right now. My mother’s the thing that’s on my mind. My mother is important.”
“What’s important is that people are attacking you, physically.”
“Can’t I identify what’s important, to me? Can’t I decide what I want to talk about?” Judy couldn’t tell if she was picking on him or if she was right, but it bugged her just the same. “It’s about my need to talk, isn’t it? It’s not about your need to know. It’s not about you.”
“Where’s this coming from, babe?” Frank was taken aback, looking at her like she was crazy. “I ask how you are and you are pissed at me?”
“I answered how I am, but I told you that I wanted to talk about my mom.”
“If you’re in danger, I want to know about that.” Frank threw up his hands. “What’s the point of keeping me in suspense?”
“I’m not keeping you in suspense.” Judy didn’t want to fight, but she wanted to be heard. “I told you I’m fine.”
“Okay, have it your way.” Frank folded his arms, his expression newly tense. “Tell me about your mom. You fought over nothing again, right? Because you two always fight. You’re oil and water. Am I right or am I right?”
“No, not exactly,” Judy said, dismayed. “It wasn’t about nothing, and we didn’t fight. We talked.”
“Okay, tell me what and your mother fought about, or sorry, talked about.” Frank sat down in one of the beach chairs in front of the loft, next to a round wooden table.
“Oh, jeez.” Judy sank into the other chair. “What are we fighting about? Do we have to fight?”
“Lately we do, that’s what it seems like. You’re unhappy all the time, and I think I know why.” Frank unfolded his arms and leaned forward, a familiar warmth returning to his rich brown eyes. “It’s not your mom, and it’s not even your aunt, getting sick. You’ve been upset from before that, since Mary and Anthony decided to get married.”
“No I haven’t,” Judy said reflexively. She didn’t want to talk about it now, but she was surprised that he’d noticed.
“Yes you have, and I know how women are.” Frank’s features softened. “It’s like when one goes to the ladies’ room, you all go to the ladies’ room.”
“No, I’m not that girl, the one who needs to go to the bathroom just because everybody else is.”
“I think you’ve been worrying about why we’re not married, and when I’m going to ask you to marry me.” Frank smiled gently, and Judy started to panic inside.
“No, that’s not it. I swear, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is. I’m not dumb.” Frank buckled his lower lip, regretful. “We never really talked about it because we both assumed it would happen. But that’s not good enough for you anymore. It’s not good enough for me anymore, either.”
“No, it’s fine,” Judy rushed to say. “We don’t have to get married just because somebody else is getting married. What’s right for one couple isn’t right for another.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that it’s just a matter of time that we’re going to get married, and I want you to know, right now, that I’d marry you in a minute.” Frank caressed her arm and smiled crookedly, his trademark loving grin. “I sensed that you weren’t ready, and I was waiting for you to come around, but if you’re ready, I’m ready. Hell, I’m more than ready. I’ve got five years on you. I can’t wait to make babies and buy a house of our own. In fact, Judy—”
“No, stop.” Judy felt a bolt of alarm, realizing from the look in his eyes that he was about to propose. “Frank, listen to me. I don’t think I’m ready. I’m not ready.”
“I don’t believe you,” Frank said softly, stroking her arm. “I think you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“I think you’re scared of taking it to the next level, which is natural, or you’re waiting to make partner, which I get, but I say enough is enough. It’s time I made an honest woman of you.” Frank took her hands in his and began to lower himself off the chair, as if he were going to kneel on bended knee, but Judy yanked her hands away.
“No, Frank, I”—Judy felt pain knife her heart, but realized what she had to do, to be fair to him—“I know what I feel, and I don’t want us to get married.”
Frank’s lips parted, and he eased back onto the chair. “You mean now, right?”
Judy’s mouth went dry. “No. I mean ever.”
Frank recoiled slowly, his dark eyebrows lifting in astonishment. “I don’t get it. You love me, right?”
“Yes, I love you. But I don’t think we should get married.”
“Ever?”
“Ever.”
Frank blinked a few times, then his eyes filmed, but he masked his emotions with a rueful smile. “Oh, man, this sucks. I’m trying to propose, and you’re trying to break up.”
“I’m really sorry,” Judy told him, from her very soul. She met his eye, even though she was responsible for the hurt that was plain in them. “I wish it were otherwise because you’re wonderful, you really are.”
“Not wonderful enough,” Frank said, pursing his lips, but without rancor in his tone.
“Wonderful enough, but that’s not the point.” Judy flashed unaccountably on what her mother had told her, about how nature couldn’t be denied. “We’re just not a good pair. We don’t fit together so well, when it comes down to it.”
“But we love each other.”
“We do, but we’re not right for each other.”
“That sounds like something a lawyer would say,” Frank said, with a shaky smile.
“There’s a reason for that.” Judy felt her eyes film. She’d come here for comfort, not to end their relationship, but it looked like it was happening and she knew it was the right thing.
“Well. Okay.” Frank exhaled, angry. “I certainly don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t appreciate me. I don’t have to.”
“I agree, you don’t, and you shouldn’t.”
“You’re making a huge mistake.”
“I could be, I know,” Judy told him, meaning it.
“But you’re doing it anyway.”
“I have to.” Judy meant that, too, somehow.
Frank met her eye, wounded but still proud. “So that’s that?”
“Yes.”
“You’re something, Carrier,” Frank said, shaking his head, pained.
“I’m sorry.”
“Gimme a hug, woman.” Frank raised his arms for a final embrace, and Judy almost melted.
“I’d love to,” she said, with feeling.