Significant Others (20 page)

Daniel picked up one of the letters and examined it.

“This is my handwriting. I wrote these to a girl I loved before I went off to Europe. I’d like them back. They mean a lot to me.”

“These are addressed to our mother. Dorothy Lewis, in Pittsburgh. That’s where she used to live.”

Daniel paled. “What did you say her name was?”

“Dorothy Lewis.”

“Dorothy. Dee Dee. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” He clutched his heart. He swayed, and I steadied his shoulders until he could regain his balance. He was so big I couldn’t have supported him alone, and Donny definitely would have let him drop. Could this day get any worse?

“Mr. Moore, you’d better sit down,” I said gently, leading him to the couch, not even beginning to understand what was going on.

“There must be some mistake,” he said, close to tears. “Dorothy,” he croaked. He couldn’t catch his breath. He was still clutching his heart. Maybe I should summon one of the roving ambulances. “Dorothy is here?”

Daniel pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from his wallet.

“This address,” he stammered. “Does it look familiar?”

I examined the piece of paper.

“Yes, this was our Grandmother Lewis’ address in Atlanta before she moved in with my parents. But that was so many years ago.”

Then he pulled his wallet from his pants pocket and showed us a weathered picture. “Th-this, is this your mother?” he asked anxiously.

I looked at the picture. This was impossible. This couldn’t be happening. How did Mr. Moore get this old picture of my mother?

“Do you have a picture of your mother when she was younger?” he asked, paling, needing to compare the two.

I grabbed my purse, pulled out my wallet, and produced my parents’ wedding picture.

“Dorothy,” he said, touching her face. “This is my Dorothy. Who is this man with her?”

“That’s, that was, my dad, Donny’s stepdad,” I answered.

“Who was your real father?” Daniel asked Donny pointedly.

“He was a flyer. Killed in the war. World War II.”

“Oh, Christ,” Daniel said, his head in his hand, the truth beginning to become clear to everyone in the room but Donny.

“Dee Dee said that when her husband married her she already had a son...”

He stared into Donny’s face. The face that looked so much like his own.

“Donny?” he extended his hand.

Donny pulled back.

“What’s wrong with you, man?”

Mr. Moore couldn’t quite bring himself to say what was on his mind.

“When were you born?” Daniel asked. Donny told him.

“Your mother was Dorothy Lewis. She had a little sister.” He paused. “Helene. Of course. I should have known.”

“When did your mother meet your father, er, your stepfather?”

“In 1945. Right after the war was over.”

“I don’t know how this could have happened. I don’t understand it, but she must have had a baby. Our baby. I wrote to her, but all my letters were returned, unopened. Her mother must have sent them back. I thought Dorothy didn’t want me. I tried, but I couldn’t find her after I got back. I’ve got to see her. I’ve got to know if she remembers me. If she knows who I am.”

“Don’t go in there,” I warned. “She’s distraught.”

Daniel lowered his voice and rubbed his hands over his face. “I need some more information. I came back from the war and looked her up, but she’d disappeared.”

“My grandmother moved the family to Atlanta when my mother was pregnant,” I explained. “My mother got a job at a real estate firm and she ended up marrying the owner of the firm. That was my father.”

“Was your grandmother a big woman, kind of gruff?” Daniel asked uncomfortably.

“My father used to call her a meddling, judgmental battle-ax,” I answered. “And Dad never had an unkind word to say about anyone.”

“Let me show you a picture of my son,” Daniel continued slowly, fumbling with his wallet and handing Donny a photo of a big bruiser of a man.

I was the first to figure out what was happening here. And I didn’t need a wallet photo to see the resemblance. It was so obvious. And suddenly it all fit together. Daniel was the missing piece that could complete Donny’s life and soothe his longing for a father.

“Barry Moore,” Daniel prompted. “He played for the Denver Bulls. Look at the two of you.” He could have been Donny’s twin.

Donny was a little slower on the uptake.

“What are you saying?” he asked.

After a few minutes of silence Daniel blurted it out.

“I th-think I might be your father,” he faltered, still holding out the picture of his son.

Donny looked like he was going to be sick.

But suddenly the truth was there in plain view for him too.

And I could tell Donny was thinking, “My brother?”

“Th-this place,” Daniel’s arm swept the room. “It’s...”

“I put it together as a tribute to my father’s memory,” Donny explained.

Daniel couldn’t speak. “This is starting to make sense. She told you I was—that your father was dead?”

“Yes. Maybe she didn’t know.”

“Donny…” Daniel started moving shakily toward my brother, then stopped. I could almost feel him thinking, “Could you be my son?”

And Donny was obviously thinking, “You could be my father.” Donny’s face crumpled. He reached out a hand. He so desperately wanted to believe it. Both of them did. Two grown men trying to find a thread of connection.

But the knowledge was too tenuous, the possibilities too monumental to contemplate, the disappointment too devastating to accept, without proof. Without confirmation from my mother.

The hope in the room was almost palpable. It was right there in Donny’s eyes and on his tearful face, and it was written all over Daniel’s, as well. He barely breathed the words, “My God, I could have another son. A son.” He looked like he wanted to take Donny into his arms, but wouldn’t that have been embarrassing if this was all just one big misunderstanding?

And I was thinking now that this Daniel Moore person had come into my mother’s life and he thought he was Donny’s father, wasn’t this wonderful for Donny to finally have the father he’d been longing for, even if the man was screwing my mother. But how would my mother react? I thought it best to leave Daniel and Donny alone for a while to face off and work things out, to get to know each other, take each other’s measure. I had a confrontation of my own to prepare for. Marc and Hannah would be here any minute. And I wasn’t nearly ready.

Chapter Thirteen: The Confrontation

What should I wear to this confrontation? Maybe the teal power suit.
I had a closet full of tailored suits at home. But the teal was too prissy. And this might be the most important meeting I’d ever have. I was so tired. I just wanted to be myself. So I picked one of my less wrinkled cotton shirts out of my suitcase, threw on a pair of jeans, combed out my hair, and waited for Marc to show his smarmy face.

Distracted by sounds in the hallway, I looked through the plantation shutters. Hannah and Marc were here, already. Seeing Marc just on the other side of the door was like a punch in the gut. All the feelings of betrayal welled up and I was beginning to feel nauseated. Straightening my shoulders, I tucked my shirt into my jeans, steeled myself to open the door, and pulled myself together. I didn’t know how I would manage to function.

I tried to block out the sounds swirling in my head, imagining Marc and Trisha in bed. I heard murmuring, his and hers this time. Soft words, tender tones, sometimes no talk at all. That was even worse. I didn’t want to think about what they were doing. What they had done afterward. Had they laughed at me when they were lying there in bed?

I didn’t register how much time passed before I heard the knock on the door. Okay, I would get through this. But I would never again let him touch me or hurt me.

“Mom?” Hannah asked tentatively, peering around the door frame. She looked so young. “We’re here.”

When I opened the door all the way, Hannah bounded into my arms. We hugged until I almost crushed her, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“I’m so sorry you had to see that,” I whispered, still holding her and staring over her head into the lying eyes of my soon-to-be-ex-husband. “It must have been horrible.”

To Marc I said coolly, “Thanks for bringing her,” as I tried to shut the door in his two-timing face. “I can take it from here.”

“Honey,” he pleaded, holding open the door with his foot. “Please let me in. We have to talk.”

This was one of those times I hated that my name was Honey. My legal name was Honey Palladino Bronstein, but I went by Honey Palladino for business purposes, and that would save me a lot of paperwork after the divorce, because I’d still be Honey Palladino. My life will go on without skipping a beat.

So I never knew if Marc was calling me Honey, as in my name, Honey, or lower case “honey” as in a term of endearment. That way he always got to slide by. That was the same way I felt on my birthday. Being born on Christmas Day, I inevitably got cheated because Hanukkah and Christmas often fall at the same time of year. So my presents were usually combination birthday-Christmas-Hanukkah presents. No one recognized the distinction.

Holidays around the Palladino household were always a hodgepodge because my dad celebrated Christmas and my mom celebrated Hanukkah. “We have the best of both worlds,” my dad used to say. This year there wasn’t much to celebrate.

“You can talk to my divorce attorney,” I replied. “I think you know her. Barbara Palladino.”

“Jeez, that barracuda,” Marc said, then noticed Donny in the background baring his teeth, so he shrugged his shoulders apologetically for maligning Donny’s wife.

“I don’t want a divorce,” Marc said emphatically, moving away from Donny and closer to me. “We can work this out. You’re taking this too far. Just give me a chance to explain.”

“You can’t explain this one away, you bastard,” I said, covering Hannah’s ears. “You were screwing your temp in
our
home in front of
our
daughter. Was she taking ‘dick’tation?”

“Honey, you’ve got it all wrong. Are you going to let me in? I’ve gotta pee.”

“Don’t be waving that puny pecker of yours anywhere around me,” I said, tightening my hold over my daughter’s ears. “In my current mood, I might just be tempted to cut it off.”

“Honey, please. Be reasonable.”

“It’s too late for that. You have this knack of always showing up at the wrong time and never being there when I really need you. You should have just dropped Hannah off. I don’t want to look at your lying face. And I’m not talking to you. But I just want you to know that I’m going to take you for everything you have—including your precious Gold Wing. The wheels are already in motion.”

“Not the Gold Wing!”

Well, at least I had my answer. If I was going to be jealous of anyone, it should be the Gold Wing. He obviously preferred the bike to Trisha.

“You’re so pathetic. You and Trisha deserve each other.”

“I’m going to fire her as soon as I get back,” Marc promised.

“If you fire her for having sex with you, I’m not the only one who’s going to be suing your ass. And you call yourself a lawyer?” At this point, I had to protect my assets.

“Who said anything about sex?” Marc said, managing to sound both sincere and surprised. “I came here to apologize, but not for that. I don’t know where you got that idea. But I do have some things to apologize for. I don’t know what got into me.”

“Well, apparently the whole world knows that you got into Trisha.” I couldn’t resist.

I wanted to take Hannah into the spare room. She didn’t need to be subjected to any more bickering or negativity. This was her Christmas break.

“Come in or stay out,” I called over my shoulder to Marc. “I don’t care.”

“Everyone, look who’s here, it’s Hannah,” I said with a false cheerfulness that bordered on hysteria. I introduced her to Daniel, who by now was openly crying. His eyes were fixed on my mother’s bedroom door as if staring at it would make her materialize.

Still shell-shocked, Donny greeted his niece and gave his brother-in-law the cold shoulder after saying, “I’m going to beat the crap out of you, Bronstein.” He whispered it fiercely into Marc’s ear, and continued, “And that’s a promise. I’m going to enjoy doing it, too. And when I’m done, you’re going to wish you were dead. You don’t deserve my sister. You never did. Sorry, Hannah. Do we need to cover your ears again?”

“I’m almost twenty-one!” Hannah protested.

“Look, man, I said I was sorry,” Marc said. “I just need to talk to my wife,
alone
.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, now I’m your wife. You seem to have conveniently forgotten that you had one, earlier.”

“Hannah Banana,” Donny said, lifting his niece off the ground with ease and swinging her around, in an effort to deflect the tension in the room.

“Uncle Donny,” she giggled. “Where are the cousins?”

“Barbara and the kids are at the hotel. I’ll take you over to see them later. I hear you’re shacking up at some frat house.”

“Uncle Donny,” Hannah protested. “They’re enlarging our sorority house, so all the girls have moved into the Delta Sig house until the renovations are complete. The Delta Sigs got kicked off campus for a year for hazing. We’re the only sorority on Fraternity Row.”

“Pretty convenient,” Donny drawled, drawing out the words. “I can put two and two together. I lived in one of those frat houses. I know what goes on there.”

“Uncle Donny, nothing is going on.”

Donny’s eyes sparkled. “There’d better not be. Because if I ever find out anyone is messing with my niece, they’ll have me to answer to. The Delta Sigs were pigs when I went to school there.”

“Their House is still filthy,” Hannah laughed. “They trashed it when they were kicked off campus. I found a dead bird in my room. And my room is one of the nicest ones. The first night I was sleeping on my mattress up in the loft and I heard these scratching noises. When I woke up I came face to face with a mouse. I started screaming and woke up the entire House. I think the mouse was more scared of me than I was of her, because she ran back into her hole.”

I would have laid odds that Miss Mousey was really Mr. Rat, and I was also wondering whether the pink furry stuff my daughter had described to me earlier when she first moved into the House was insulation and if she was being exposed to asbestos and who knows what else. And all Hannah could talk about were the girls’ frequent visits to “the neighbors,” who it seems were the fraternity houses on either side of the Delta Sig House. When it comes to daughters, a mother’s job is to worry about mice and men. And believe me, I was plenty worried.