I Know This Much Is True (77 page)

“I know the baby’s not mine,” I said.

She looked more bewildered than surprised. “What do you mean, not yours? Of course it’s yours, Dominick. What are you talking about?”

“It can’t be. I’m sterile. I got a vasectomy back when I was married.”

She blinked. Sat there. “What?”

“I never told you about it. My wife . . . Dessa and I . . . we had a kid. A little girl. Her name was Angela. She died.”

“Dominick,” Joy said. “Stop it. Why are you doing this?”

“I
should
have told you. I
know
I should have told you, but . . .”

I asked her if she remembered that time when we’d discussed kids—way back, right near the beginning. We’d both said we weren’t interested. “So I just . . . I told myself that it wasn’t even an issue.

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Convinced myself that I didn’t have to get into it because you didn’t want babies anyway. That I could just let you keep taking your birth control pills and . . . But I see now that it was the same as lying.

Keeping it from you. You’re not the only one who’s been dishonest.

We’ve both been lying to each other. I’m not even mad, really. God, the way I’ve been treating you the past couple months. . . . I mean, I
was
mad. When I first found out about it? I was ready to come out punching.”

“It’s this medication they’re giving you,” she said. “It’s making you think strange.”

“You remember that night you got arrested for stealing? And you were saying how, now that everything was out in the open, that it was a
good
thing, not a
bad
thing? That things were going to be better than ever between us? And I told you not to get your hopes up.

Remember, Joy? I told you I was damaged goods. You remember me telling you that? . . . That’s what I was talking about, I guess. The baby. What it did to my wife and me. I don’t know, Joy. It damages you. When you have a baby and you get to know her for three weeks and then she . . . just
dies.
I’m not trying to make excuses. I just . . .

That’s what I meant when I said I was damaged goods. So I . . . I went and got a vasectomy. I can’t have kids, Joy. Whoever the father of your baby is, it’s not me.”

She just sat there, blinking. Looking at me strange.

“And . . . and I’m not even mad. I’m sad, Joy. I’m just real sad, because . . . because I was never really going to be able to give you a fair shake. You and me, I mean. I see that now. I
used
you. I’m damaged goods. But now I’m too tired to . . . I can’t fake it anymore, Joy.

I can’t keep playing whatever game it is we’ve been playing.
I can’t.
”

She blinked. Laughed. “Stop it, okay? You’re wrecking everything. This is
your
baby. Mine and yours. You’re going to get better, and we’re going to have this baby, and buy a house and . . . Who
else’s
would it be, Dominick? I don’t even know what you’re
talking
about.”

We both just sat there, looking at each other.

“Honest!” she said. “Honest to God!”

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That nurse came back into the room. Vonette. “Let’s see about that bag now,” she said. She took a look. Took my hand and felt for the pulse. Joy backed away from the bed. She looked shell-shocked.

Scared. I hadn’t meant to scare her about Angela. I was sorry about that. But I couldn’t keep it up. I was too tired. I just wanted to sleep.

“Where’s your buddy?” Vonette asked me. “He didn’t go AWOL, did he?”

What? Leo? She nodded toward Steve Felice’s empty bed.

“Oh. . . . I don’t know. He’s probably out in the solarium.”

“Your BP seems a little high, hon,” Vonette said. “I’m going to come back and check it for you in another half hour or so. Okay?”

“Okay.”

She turned to Joy. “All right now, hon. If you don’t mind, I have to check his catheter and change his bag. I’m going to draw the curtain for a couple minutes and then you can get right back to your visit. All right?”

“All right,” Joy said. She smiled. Backed up another few steps.

Vonette drew the curtain between us.

I had imagined some big showdown when I lowered the boom—lifted the lid off the fact that she’d been cheating on me. But it hadn’t been like that at all. I felt so sleepy.

“There now,” said Vonette. “You’re all set.”

When she pulled the curtain back again, Joy was gone.

Ray visited later that afternoon. That evening, too. Neither of us mentioned Joy. We didn’t say much at all, really—just sat and watched TV together. I dozed more than anything else. Leo and Angie came on Sunday afternoon, with a homemade poster from the kids. When Angie asked where Joy was, I shrugged. Said something about a cold.

Leo came back later by himself, carrying this three-ton fruit basket—something like a picture out of a magazine. The card said, “Best wishes for a speedy recovery. Fondly, Gene and Thula Constantine.”

Fondly? Since when? Leo pulled off the cellophane for me. Ate one piece of fruit after another, practicing his hook shot with the waste-

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basket and the cores and peels and rinds. “Okay, where is she?” he finally said.

“Who?”

“Joy. Is she
really
sick?”

I shrugged. Yawned. Grabbed the chain bar and shifted my position a little. I told Leo I appreciated his visiting, but did he mind leaving now? I was tired. I wanted to sleep.

I was dozing in and out of
60 Minutes
when something woke me up. A shadow. I opened my eyes.

He was just standing there, watching me. The Duchess.

“What do
you
want?” I said.

He handed me my Walkman from the house. And a cassette. I didn’t get it.

“This is from Joy,” he said. “She wants you to listen to it.”

“Yeah? Why didn’t
she
come up and give it to me, then? Where’s
she
at?”

“In the car,” he said. “She explained everything on the tape. Just listen to it.”

He turned and left.

“That was a short visit,” Felice said.

“What?”

“Your friend there. He didn’t stay long.”

“My friend?”

Hi, Dominick. I’m, uh . . . I’ve been trying all day to write you
a letter, but nothing’s coming out right. I never was a big one for
putting things down on paper, so Thad said, “Why don’t you just
make him a tape? Tell him what you need to say on a tape.” And I
thought, yeah, maybe that’s a good idea, because I guess I have a lot
of explaining to do. . . . I don’t know, Dominick. I guess if I wasn’t
so ashamed of myself, I would have told you everything in person.

I . . . I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I saw you yesterday
afternoon. I was up all last night thinking about you and me, and
where I’ve been in my life, and where I’m going. I have to admit
that you blew me away when you told me the baby couldn’t be
yours. I wanted it to be your baby, Dominick. Our baby. I just
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wanted it to work out for us. When you used to say to me how you
couldn’t give me a “happily ever after” life, I used to go to myself,
yes he can. He just doesn’t know it yet. But I guess I was just fooling myself. As usual.

Ever since I was little, Dominick, I’ve had this Carol Brady
picture of myself as this nice, pretty mom with a nice house and a
husband who loves me, and we have real cute kids. Things in my
life got unbelievably complicated, but that was really all I ever
wanted. . . . I know I told you some of the stuff about my childhood, but there’s way more I never went into. It was hard. All my
mom’s husbands and boyfriends . . . I’d just start getting used to
things and then we’d move again. And my mom would always say,

“Well, this is it. I finally found what I’ve been looking for,” and
then the next thing you knew, we’d be moving again. Sometimes
we moved so quick, I couldn’t even hand in my schoolbooks. Last
night I counted all the different schools I went to by the time I
graduated from high school. I came up with nine. I never counted
them before last night. Nine schools by the time I was seventeen.

The worst times were when she was between guys. Sometimes
we didn’t even have any food in the house and I’d be like, “Mom,
you have to get a job so we can eat something,” and she’d always
go, “Don’t worry. Something will turn up. I’ll meet someone.” We
had this trick where we used to rip off grocery stores when there
was nothing in the house. . . . We’d go in and get a cart and fill it
up like we were doing a big shopping and then we’d just eat stuff
out of the cart—bananas, crackers, American cheese. Then we’d
pretend we forgot something in Aisle 2 or whatever and just walk
out of the store and my mom would go, “Don’t look back! Just keep
walking!” Sometimes I’d still be hungry and she’d be rushing me
out of there.

When she was between guys, she used to have to get all dressed
up and go out at night. She wasn’t a hooker or anything. Don’t get
me wrong. She just used to have to go out to bars and clubs and let
men know she existed. . . . I used to think she looked so beautiful
when she went out. I’d always help her get ready, help her fix her
hair and zip her up in the back. It was like playing dress-up with
your dolls or something, except it was your own mother. I didn’t
think it was weird or anything, but that time after I got arrested?

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And I was going to Dr. Grork? He said it was abnormal.

Unhealthy. I guess I just didn’t think that much about it at the
time. Analyze it or whatever. It was just our life. . . .

I used to hate staying by myself all night when she went out. I
don’t really blame her. She couldn’t help it. How was she supposed
to pay some baby-sitter when we couldn’t even pay for the food we
were eating at the grocery store? . . . But I was always a nervous
wreck when she was out like that. Thinking some killer or burglar
was going to get me. I used to get so nervous that I’d pull out the
hairs on my eyebrows. I did it in school all the time, too. It got to be
a bad habit. I had this one witch of a fourth-grade teacher who
was always yelling at me for making the skin around my eyebrows
bleed. It was like this woman’s personal mission in life was to get
me to keep my hands away from my face. There’s this school picture
of me that year that I still have. I never showed it to you. It’s kind
of pathetic. We were living in Tustin then. (It was just before my
mom met her husband Mike.) And, in the picture, you can see these
red scabs where my eyebrows are supposed to be. Whenever I look at
that picture, I get that same feeling in my stomach like I used to get
when I’d be by myself all night, or half the night, or whatever. It’s
like I’m that same little girl again and nothing else in my life has
ever happened. It’s weird. . . . I’m not telling you all this to make
you feel sorry for me, Dominick. I’m just trying to explain why I
wanted so much for us to have a house, and a baby, and maybe
even get married at some point. But you have to admit that I
never tried to push you into it. . . .

The pregnancy just happened, Dominick. I keep thinking that
you think I got pregnant just to trap you into marrying me. I’m
real upset about that because that’s not at all what happened.

Honest to God.

I really think having this baby is gonna change me for the better, Dominick. Make me a better person. I hope it does. . . . Ever
since you told me yesterday about your baby daughter that died, I
can’t stop thinking about her. I am so, so sorry, Dominick. That
must be so heavy duty. And it explains a lot about you that I could
never figure out. Why you seem so mad at the world or whatever. I
just wish you had told me about her. I might have been able to help
you through it.

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I keep thinking about your ex-wife, too. I had a good cry over
her last night—right in the middle of everything else I was thinking about. Probably because I’m gonna be a mother, too, now. . . . I
never told you this, but I saw her one time. Your ex-wife. I don’t
even remember her name, but I knew it was her. She was at the
mall with Angie. Angie and her are sisters, right? That’s how I
figured it out. They didn’t see me, so I just . . . I followed them. I
sat down in back of them at the food court and listened to their
conversation. They were talking about their mother—what they
should get her for her birthday—and I just sat there going, this is
Dominick’s ex-wife. This is the woman he was with before he was
with me. . . . She seemed nice. I remember sitting there wishing
that she, Angie, and I were three girlfriends out shopping together.