The Astor Orphan (20 page)

“Any day now, dear. Any day . . .” Dad threw a shovelful of broken plaster onto the window chute that led to a dump truck parked on the lawn below. The dust made Mom cough and wave her hand in the air irritably.

“Oh, has your father told you the latest news yet?” she said, jeering.

“More news?” I asked.

“Entertaining stories are what your father lives for. But I doubt he'll be telling this one to everyone he runs into,” Mom snorted. “
Giselle is pregnant!
” She laughed in contempt as she walked away.

“What?” Numbness climbed my legs, fingers, arms, and face.

When Ben returned from the hospital later that spring, Uncle Harry and his family moved into the house that Aunt Olivia had bought from Cousin Chanler Chapman's estate.

When Maggie and Diana showed me their new rooms, I understood that they had done it. They, not I, had gotten out. Only Mom, Dad, and I remained.

Courtesy of Ania Aldrich

A
s a little girl, I used to wait by the phone, because Dad had said they would be calling any day now with a baby brother for me.

“There are plenty of unwanted kids out there. Someone is bound to call with a baby they want to give away.”

And for years I'd waited, hoping not to remain an only child.

At the beginning of the summer, just as I was feeling that my own little family unit could not become more broken, Giselle reappeared. It had been almost a year since I had last seen her. As if to fill the void, she brought with her a new baby boy.

He'd finally arrived: the brother of my dreams, and the son of Dad's.

Everyone knew the truth about the baby's paternity, of course. He had a shock of straight black hair and beady little black eyes, just like Dad had in the baptism picture that had long sat in a silver frame on a desk in the octagonal library.

And yet, Grandma Claire and Mom maintained that it was best to say nothing. And since we were not allowed to speak of the facts of the case, we could definitely not speak about our feelings regarding these facts.

Giselle was physically much changed since last summer. Her shoulder-length wavy hair was disheveled in what could only be described as the lack of a hairdo, marked with a few gray streaks. The lines running along the sides of her nose and down around her mouth were more pronounced. Now that she was weighed down by a new infant, she would have more difficulty keeping up with Dad—unless, of course, she left the child with us.

When she asked to speak to me alone, I led her into the dining room. Here, whatever was said could be witnessed by the general, John Armstrong; the “Duchess,” Great-Grandma Margaret; even Aunt Liz and Grandma in their younger incarnations.

Then Giselle dropped the bomb. “I would like you to be the godmother for baby Jean. . . .”

I was Elizabethan in my icy stiffness. I had not yet even been stricken with bleeding, and she wanted to burden me with motherhood! But of course I did not say no. In my inexpressible anger, I was voiceless.

Yet I felt sorry for this infant. I wanted to rescue him from a chaotic childhood, kidnap him away from Giselle.

Giselle moved quickly. In a Napoleonic way, once she had gotten what she wanted from me—I had practically surrendered—she moved on. Later that same day, I spied her with her bundle on Grandma's doorstep, a place she'd never dared stand before. Her shadow was exaggerated, elongated in the late-afternoon sun. Her polite knock rattled against the plastic half of Grandma's screen door.

Then I saw Grandma Claire at the door, hunched over, her spindly fingers pushing against the screen door's Plexiglas. Her lips were pursed tightly. She was not quite smiling as she peered disapprovingly over the top of her black-rimmed spectacles. Yet, unable to be inhospitable within the walls of her own house, she opened the door. Giselle disappeared into the house's dimness, as if she had lasers that could burn through all obstacles, even Grandma's fury—now just a pile of smoldering ashes.

Perhaps the tragic events of this year had left Grandma Claire too broken to fight. Or perhaps she could not deny that Giselle had won.

I slipped in through the kitchen door.

I could hear Grandma in the living room. “
Vous voulez jus de canneberge? Ou tomate?
” Even to my untrained ear, Grandma Claire sounded funny trying to speak French. “
Pas de vin
, you know, when you're nursing. . . . Is the
bébé
sleeping through the night?”

It wasn't until the day of the baptism that Giselle inadvertently introduced the baby to Mom.

Mom, Dad, and I were getting ready to go out to a lunch party at the Simmonses'.

Mom sat at our kitchen table, tapping her foot impatiently and smelling of Chanel No. 5 as she waited for Dad to show up. She had her newly hennaed hair pinned back, with some locks hanging free, like vines of morning glory around her moon face.

In a moment, we heard the echo of Dad's construction boots stomping through the front hall.

“Mrs. Simmons said one o'clock!” Mom snapped at him the minute he walked through the kitchen door. Dad was still dressed in his blue working uniform; on his shirt was a name badge reading
TONY
. His face and hair looked as if he'd just come out of a chimney. “Why are you getting ready only now? It's ten to one. We'll be late, as usual. Do you think I care? I should just drive myself, and let you walk. . . . But what if the brakes should fail?”

“So sorry, Ala.” He turned right around, and in a moment, we could hear his boots thumping up the front stairs. In another minute, Mom's eyes squinted peevishly as another figure appeared in the dimly lit doorway.

“What does
she
want?” Mom's upper lip curled around her left canine. “We're about to go out,” she shouted, as if volume would aid the quietly frantic Frenchwoman's understanding, and as if understanding would result in cooperation. We both knew she would not just shrug her shoulders indifferently and walk back to wherever she'd come from.

“Uh?” she grunted, confused. She was also squinting. “Teddy 'ere?”

“He's upstairs, getting changed. We're . . . going . . .
out
.” Here was Mom, on the other side of the cultural barricade, enunciating English for the foreigner and being the mistress of the house,
belonging
to a place. The position of authority, however, was fleeting, because Giselle was gone in a flash, and we could hear her steps, as a lighter echo of Dad's, padding up the front stairs.

As soon as we heard the two sets of footsteps descend together, Mom and I headed out onto the front porch.

“Teddy!” Giselle's voice was now shrill and heated. “You said you'd come to the baptism! I
told
you it was today!” I was feeling a bit guilty, as the godmother, although it was obviously not my attendance Giselle was worrying about.

“I'm sorry.” Dad's tone was now insincere, as if he were speaking to a distant acquaintance. He walked across the driveway toward Mom's red VW Bug. “I forgot.”

“Oooh . . . ,” she whined, heated with agitation. “Teddy, how could you
do
this?!”

Mom followed Dad with the confidence of legitimacy in her step, her black purse dancing neatly off her hip, so light in comparison with Giselle's load. I hopped into the backseat, content that it was Giselle, and not I, who was being left out.

Giselle ran to stand between Dad and the car. “How could you be so
cold
?” she pleaded. “For baby Jean!”

“Okay, okay,” he said, assenting. “I'll be there.” And he brushed by her and the baby. Had he looked at the infant even once?

Mom reacted from the passenger seat. “Why are you lying? You are
not
leaving the lunch early!” Then she smacked him on the side of the head with the back of her hand, in her usual way. “Son of a
bitch
!” It was clear that her anger at Dad far outweighed any negativity she might have been feeling toward Giselle.

“But it's in fifteen min
ute
!” The usually sweet bells of Giselle's voice were clanging discordantly, as the red VW Bug pulled away with our threesome, uncharacteristically united, inside. As we left Giselle and her bundle in a cloud of dust, she trotted after us, the sack of baby now screeching, bouncing up and down.

“Teddy! Don't forget!
C'est ton fils!
Teddy! Teddy! Do you
promise
, Teddy?”

“
Sorry, sorry!
” Mom said sarcastically.

I felt sad for my father. Though he'd finally gotten the son he had dreamed of, he had not acknowledged his paternity. His long-awaited heir would remain unclaimed.

We parked at the end of a long line of cars in the Simmonses' driveway. As we crossed the wooden bridge that led to the front door, with the sound of the water rushing over the falls close by, Mom gave Dad one last jab in the side before putting on a friendly face.

“Ala!” Our hostess floated down the S-shaped stairway onto the entrance landing, with her skinny arms outstretched inside their gauzy sleeves. “It's so lovely to see you again!” Her voice was a soft wind, her phrases little gusts of airiness. She had wine on her breath.

Mom put on her demure, dimpled smile as she received Mrs. Simmons's kiss. “And Teddy . . .” Her voice was now like dry leaves crinkling under leisurely feet. “It's so wonderful to see you again. . . . Come and cool off with a drink.”

Upstairs was the dining room with the balcony overlooking the sofas and grand piano below, where our student recitals took place. Various guests now stood around holding cocktails. It was quite an intellectual crowd; several professors from the local college were talking about books. I was used to such conversations and knew all these people well. I put on my intellectual façade.

“How are you, Alexandra?” I exchanged kisses and handshakes with several of the guests. “Been reading anything interesting lately?”

“I'm reading
Tender Is the Night
,” I bragged. “I'm struck by Fitzgerald's beautiful writing style. I find it quite disturbing though.”

“Yes, well . . . the incest, of course. Quite right.”

We made our way to the dining room and Mrs. Simmons told us where to sit. “Teddy, I have you between David and Sam,” said the wispy voice. Mrs. Simmons always seated Dad where his natural ability to converse would be put to best use. “And Ala next to me . . .” She was at one head, and her husband was at the far end against the glass sliding doors that exited onto a triangular balcony overlooking the stream.

Mr. Simmons was a minister. He stood, head bowed, hands resting on the back of his chair. It was strange to see him without his minister's collar. “Almighty Lord, we thank you for the food you have put before us, and for our beloved families and friends. Amen.”

“Amen,” we responded in unison. Then chairs scraped the floor as we all took our seats.

As the stream roared outside, the conversation circulated as lazily as the ceiling fans overhead. Beads of perspiration hung on foreheads. Wineglasses kissed lips, which were then wiped with napkins lifted from laps. Everyone smiled politely and laughed with control when a joke was told.

Dad was now telling the story of how he and his friends had gone on an archaeological expedition on the neighboring Delano estate when he was twelve.

“There was a rumor going around that slaves had been buried in a field directly south of our place, on our cousin's property, near a patch of trees in the middle of a field where there was a rock pile. My father had identified that spot as the likely location for slave burials. And so, together with the usual suspects, we decided to mount an archaeological expedition, to see if we could uncover these tombs. We thought that in the interest of science, we would not tell our cousin that we were doing this, because the scientific project was too important to be stopped by a mere landowner. So we marched over there, and we set up our camp—like any good colonial-era archaeological expedition—with a flag and tents and all that kind of stuff, and we started digging. We didn't find anything, but we dug some test holes, and we laid out our trenches in good style, figured out what we wanted to do, and then we decided we'd had enough for that day, so we camped out. Then, later on that night, my father came over and woke us up. It seemed that the superintendent over there had spotted us and turned us in to his boss. She wanted to know why we were there, and what was going on, so this caused a lot of trouble. She didn't know about the slave-bone project. So we had to withdraw; we could not proceed with the digging. And we never did find out if there were slaves buried there or not. We were hoping for jewelry, possibly gold teeth, whatever else might have been buried with them, like chains and pendants.”