The Belief in Angels (49 page)

Sarah Lawrence accepted me two weeks after my interview. I told them I wanted to study English Lit, but as soon as I got my acceptance I knew I could never go there. The Caucasian population accounts for about 95 percent of the students, and after living in diversity-void Withensea my whole life, I’ve had enough of homogenous living. I applied because I thought I would receive an original education there, but it just didn’t feel right.

My safety school is Boston University. I’ve been accepted as a liberal arts major. I figure I can study art and earn a decent BA degree there as well.

My grandfather has been putting David through college. He’s offered to do the same for me. The sole caveat is that I have to spend spring break week, my last free week before graduation, with him and my Grandmother Ruth. He says he wants to go over the details of my college plans.

I’m delighted to oblige. Wendy hasn’t displayed an interest in my college plans and progress. She never offered to help with any of the applications and seems barely interested.

“I knew you’d be accepted wherever you applied,” she says.

Sometimes you need a person not to know everything so they can be excited with you.

I haven’t had a chance to really talk with Ruth during our brief visits to Boston. Wendy doesn’t like her or her daughter Bethyl much. I’ve been going on my own to see them, but only occasionally.

Wendy says they don’t like her because they consider her a sinner. The Jews have at least four Hebrew words for the different kinds of sins you can commit. I’m sure Wendy has earned every word. But I also know the Jews believe sin is an act and not a state of being. Maybe she’ll be forgiven.

My car needs new brakes and a service so Wendy offers to drive me into Boston to their apartment. I’m shocked at first, but then I figure she needs to pick up a check from him and that’s why she’s volunteering.

After dropping my car at the home of our mechanic, a guy Wendy dated last summer, I climb into Wendy’s new car, a green 1973 Gremlin. She and Jack call it the “Green Goblin” because it gobbles so much money with repairs to the ignition system.

The glove box won’t shut and I’m trying to fix the locking mechanism. It’s stuck.

“So, I wanted to congratulate you again on your acceptance to your colleges.

I’m proud of you,” Wendy says, gesturing wildly with both hands as she drives.

“I’m still waiting to hear from the Boston School of the Arts.”

She keeps talking like she hasn’t heard me.

“I also wanted to tell you I’m proud you’re going to pursue your artistic passions. You’re talented and I’m sure you’re going to succeed. You can do anything you put your mind to. You’re smart, you know?”

The car seat upholstery looks like Levi’s jeans, but it’s cheap nylon—frayed at the seams. I pick at it and pretend I’m distracted by the cars we pass on the highway.

“I want you to understand that your grandfather loves you a lot, but he comes from a different era. He believes it’s wasteful to study artistic endeavors. He thinks you should study education. Actually, I think he wants you to go to college so you can find and marry a doctor.”

“I told Grandpa my plans and he said he’d support me through college.”

“I know what he told you. I’m telling you now, he plans to change your mind about your major and he won’t take no for an answer. He’s a stubborn man, believe me. He’s not going to change his mind about this. The best thing for you to do is go and study whatever you want, but tell him you’re going to study education, or law, or medicine … or tell him you’re studying to be a teacher. He’ll accept that.”

I can’t understand why my grandfather wouldn’t tell me this himself and why Wendy is telling me now. But I can’t think of any reason she might have to lie to me.

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask.

“Because. I know you think your grandfather is a nice man, but you don’t know how he acts when you cross him. He’s a bull. All my life he’s been trying to control what I do, how I behave, how I live. I used to pray to God I would be the daughter he wanted, that he would see me and love me for the girl I truly was and not the girl he wanted me to be.”

I’m surprised to hear Wendy talking about her childhood. I realize I know little about her years living with my grandparents. She never talks about it.

“What kind of a girl were you, and what kind of girl did he want you to be?”

“Good question. What kind …?” She falls silent. I can tell she’s trying to answer thoughtfully, and I wonder what nerve I’ve touched.

“I was a quiet kid.”

I laugh. “Quiet?”

She laughs.

“Yeah, I was quiet. I started to gain more confidence as a teenager, but I was exceptionally withdrawn. I never felt like I could talk. I certainly wasn’t encouraged to share my opinions. Your grandfather kept a tight rein on every aspect of my life. I wasn’t allowed to have friends from school over or to play outside. I had one friend, a young boy who lived in the next apartment. His mother was the daughter of some family friends, and the boy and I played in the hallway between our apartments. We rode our bikes around the hallway like it was a racetrack, and we played together in one or the other of our apartments after school.”

Wendy is weaving in and out of lanes as she talks. I’m nervous about responding, about distracting her further, but curiosity wins.

“What happened to him?”

“When I turned twelve, he moved away. It wasn’t until high school I was allowed to go places after school with my friends.”

“That must have been hard.”

“Well, everything changed. As soon as I had freedom things went haywire with your grandfather. He lost control. I lost my will to please him. We started fighting about everything, and we’ve never stopped. After I met your father it got
even worse. He hated the idea of me dating a
goyem.
He told me I’d sinned and I’d shamed the entire family

“When they told me the truth about my adoption, I was devastated. I was seventeen. I’d gone to live with your grandfather when I turned ten. Until then, I’d been living with his parents, who I thought were my real parents. But they’d been lying to me all those years. I felt like I couldn’t trust anything or anyone. If I hadn’t needed my birth certificate for my driver’s license, they wouldn’t have ever told me. They would have continued to lie about everything.”

This is stunning. I had no idea they waited that long to tell her.

The driver behind us honks loudly as she cuts him off, crossing two lanes to get to our exit ramp. “Fuck you, asshole!” Wendy screams at the man as he passes her on the left.

“So, who do you think he wanted you to be?” I ask.

“He wanted me to be someone impossible. He wanted me to be a great scholar—something no one in his family had been able to achieve. He never wanted me to marry or be a wife. He wanted me to achieve greatness as a woman in a man’s world. He wanted me to deny that I was female, or even human.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I left for college I started dating a man in one of my classes. I got pregnant.”

Another driver honks at us when Wendy pulls a U-y in a no-turn lane without using her signal. She grows quiet again and concentrates on her driving.

“What happened?”

“I went home. The guy I’d been dating didn’t want to have a kid, but I wasn’t going to have an abortion. I wanted the baby. Your grandfather said he wouldn’t help me. He told me I’d ruined my life and he didn’t want anything to do with me. He called me the same names your father called you.”

“Oh my God. How awful. You must have felt so scared.”

“Yes it was awful. I was frightened and all alone. I had no idea what to do. I had no job; he wouldn’t pay for school now that I’d gotten pregnant. I had no way of returning to finish the semester or continue my schooling after the baby came. I couldn’t abort that baby. I wanted my own flesh and blood. I wanted my own family.”

I got confused.

“So, what happened to the baby?”

She grows quiet for a long time, and I can see she’s having difficulty telling me the rest of the story.

“I married your father. I convinced him the baby was his. His family made
him marry me because they didn’t want the dishonor of having a bastard, or a baby they believed might be his bastard, running around. I’d never told your grandfather who had fathered the baby. He assumed it was Howard’s.”

“Oh my God. This means David isn’t—isn’t Dad’s kid.”

She seems surprised I haven’t figured this out instantly. Like I’m an idiot.

“Yeah, that’s right.” She does a double take and looks almost angry for a moment. “If you ever repeat this, I’ll deny it. Your father would kill me, do you understand? He would kill me.”

“Fine. But don’t you think David would like to know who his real father is? I mean, think how you felt learning about the lie your parents told you.”

“No. I don’t think it would do David any good, and it’s not like the lie my parents told me. The people who raised him were his parents. I am his mother. David’s not going to hear about it, right? Don’t make me sorry I told you. I don’t want him to have to feel badly, like I did.”

She slams her hands into the wheel of the car. “I shouldn’t have told you. I thought you were old enough to be trusted.”

I’m worried we’re going to have an accident. When she gets agitated Wendy drives more erratically than usual, a pattern that has caused me great anxiety over the years.

“I won’t. I won’t tell him. But I’m not going to stop wanting you to tell him. I still think he should know.”

She doesn’t answer. Instead, as we pass it, she points to the Rainbow Swash on the Boston Gas storage tank. “Did I tell you Jack met the artist who designed that? Do you see Ho Chi Minh?”

“Like a million times! So, is Howard
my
father? Is he Moses’s father?”

I figure if she could lie about one kid, she could definitely be lying about others.

“Yeah, yeah, he’s your father. As much as you may not want him to be your dad, he’s still your biological father. Sorry.”

I laugh. I’m not sure exactly why I’m laughing, but I find it funny. It’s incredible to be hearing this story, and I can’t believe she’s told me.

“Why are you telling me all this now?”

“I don’t know, maybe because you’re at an important point in your life. I can see how much you want to achieve your dreams of pursuing your art. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I made. I want you to follow your dreams and do what you want.”

“Don’t you think you did what you wanted? You had the baby. You had David. It’s what you said you wanted.”

She grows quiet, and then says, “I wanted your brother, and I wanted a career. I enrolled at Columbia as a sociology major. I wasn’t sure what I would do with a sociology degree—your grandfather wanted me to teach, but I didn’t feel sure about that idea—but regardless, I wanted more than what I settled for.”

“Why have more babies?”

“I didn’t want David to be an only child. In my experience it felt lonely. I wanted David to have a sister. I wanted a girl. That was you.”

“Okay, I guess I understand. But why have another one … why have Moses?”

“My birth control method consisted of douching after sex.”

I have no idea what this means. I’ve never heard the word “douche”before. I ignore that, though, so she’ll tell me the rest of the story.

“So what happened? Did you decide you wanted another baby?”

“No. I found out your father had had another affair, this time with a friend of mine. I told him I was divorcing him. He flipped out. He told me he’d never agree to a divorce, then he beat me and raped me. I went back to your grandfather’s house. I don’t know why, I guess I thought he would protect me. It was the second time I could remember really needing him to do something for me. I told him what had happened and that I wanted to divorce your father. He said, ‘You made your bed, go lie in it.’ So, I went home. I realized pretty quickly that he’d gotten me pregnant again. I didn’t want another baby, and I tried everything I could to abort it this time. I carried boxes across the living room all day for a week to try and lose the baby. It didn’t work. I told your father I would name the baby Spite.”

I want to throw up, but she won’t stop talking. I’m having trouble accepting her story about Howard raping her, I’m sure she’s exaggerating. I reach over to punch another radio station on the dashboard and dial up the volume.

“You were actually the one planned pregnancy I had. I decided one night not to douche after your father and I had sex,” Wendy says, turning the volume back down.

I can tell she isn’t going to stop telling these stories, and while they hold a curious fascination for me, I realize I’ve had more information than I want to process for one day.

“Can we stop talking now? I don’t want to hear any more.” I’m scanning the buildings out my car window. Everything is wavy.

“Jules, I know you don’t want to hear any of this shit. I know you’re angry with me and you think I ruined your life with the way I raised you, and I’m sorry about all that. One day you’re going to understand that I raised you the way I did because of the things I went through. I wanted to be sure you didn’t have to suffer like I did. I wanted you to be an independent person. I didn’t want you to feel like you had to rely on a man, or anyone, to take care of you. I wanted you to be prepared
for the world, not sheltered and coddled the way I’d been. The real world shocked me. It sent me straight into a rotten marriage and left me financially dependent on your grandfather the rest of my life.”