Antonia's Choice (36 page)

After that, Reggie kept me well-supplied with homemade soups and stews and puddings, which, she pointed out, might also put some meat on my bones. She still said I looked “tragic.”

I definitely needed sustenance. Besides the day-to-day balls I was trying to juggle, there were the crises that erupted and threatened to bring all of them crashing down.

I took Ben to his first day of first grade on a Monday morning in late August. Surprisingly he didn't cry when I left him with Mrs. Quinn—an ample woman with a voice like a song—probably because Troy was in his class and she put them at the same table. I,
of course, cried all the way home, and I was trying to cover up the aftereffects with makeup so I could go to work when Lance Andrews, the guy from the D.A.'s office in Richmond, called. He said Bobbi was going to be arrested within a matter of hours.

It didn't take that long. An hour and a half later, just as I was walking out the door, I got another call.

This time it was my mother, screaming into the phone, “Antonia, do you know what you've done!”

It was pointless to try to say anything. It was obvious she was beyond comprehending, and there was nothing I could have said to make her understand even if she had been rational. I myself couldn't fathom any of it.

“Do you hear me?” she said. “Antonia—do you?”

“Yes, I hear you,” I said.

“Do you know what you've done? Do you know that they arrested her at our hotel? They dragged her through the lobby in handcuffs, in front of a hundred people!”

“I'm sorry you had to go through that.”

“Don't be sorry for me—be sorry for your poor sister!”

“My poor sister put herself in this position.”

“Hasn't she been through enough?”

“I haven't really thought about what Bobbi's been through, Mama,” I said. “I've been a little busy with what my son is going through, and my niece. They're the victims, not Bobbi.”

“They're lying!”

“My five-year-old is lying about things he couldn't possibly have made up?”

“You've put ideas into his head!”

Despite the fact that she was moving closer to the edge, I had to respond, just for my own sanity.

“Why? Why on earth would I do that? Why would I put him through the police interviews and people sticking cameras up his rear end? Why would I do that to my own child?”

“I don't know.”

“You're asking the wrong person. Have you asked your oldest daughter why she did what she did to
her
own children?”

“She did nothing wrong. This has all been blown out of proportion.”

“I think not. I think we're just now beginning to get the true picture.

“It's not true!”

“Have you asked her?”

“I don't have to ask her.”

“Ask her, Mama. Get right in Bobbi's face and ask her if she fondled her three-year-old's genitals and told him it was to make him feel better after his father stripped him naked and made him pose like something out of
Playgirl
and then threatened him with drowning and decimation if he told anybody. You ask her that, Mama. You ask her until she screams out the truth like Ben and Wyndham do.”

I was shaking so hard I could barely hold the phone. I had to encase my face with the other hand to stop my teeth from clacking together.

There was silence on the other end of the line, a silence I didn't fill. I had said all I could say without further bruising a confused woman who obviously didn't have an inkling and couldn't have stood it if she did.

“It would break her heart if I were even to suggest such a thing,” Mama said finally. Her voice was hard and brittle, barely controlled.

“A broken heart might be a good place to start,” I said. “That's where God grabbed hold of me, anyway.”

“Don't you even speak to me about God.”

“Bobbi needs help. Sid has done such a number on her over the years, she's sick. If you want to take care of your daughter, get her to the best psychologist you can find, and make sure he or she is a Christian.”

“How am I supposed to do that? She's in jail. There is no more money to post bail, unless I give up your portion of the inheritance.”

“Do it! Do it if it means getting her some decent help.”

“I think I will, because you are no longer my daughter.”

That was it. The last thing I had to give up was now gone.

Somehow I got it together to go to work. I blew in five minutes late and tied on my apron while I read the days specials. Jerusalem artichokes and lamb with chickpeas were hopelessly lost in the labyrinth of my mind when Ian came in, took one look at me, and all but ordered me into his office.

I was sitting in a chair with my feet up on a stool and a glass of lemon water in my hand before I realized he wasn't going to chew me out—or throw me out. Everything on him was drooping in concern.

“What is it, Toni?” he said, accent on the
i.
“More bad news?”

“They've arrested my sister. My mother has disowned me. And this is the second time today I've completely destroyed my eye makeup. Other than that, I'm fine.” I attempted a smile. “Just let me have a couple minutes to slap on some mascara and I'll be ready to start serving.”

He muttered something in French and looked at me sadly. Even his mustache was taking a downward turn.

“You will not work in this restaurant today,” he said. “You will rest.”

“I can't afford to take the day off, Ian. I have bills to pay.”

“The bills—they will be paid. You go home. Do what you have to do. Take some
mouton
home with you.”

“I'll be better after I get to work—”

“How will you work? Your heart is broken. Go home.”

“Are you firing me?”

This time, Ian's very shoulders sagged. He got up out of his chair and came to me, smothering both of my hands in his muscular paws.

“You are
mon amie
—my friend,” he said. “I take care of my friends. You go home. You come back tomorrow. It will be as if you have worked, I promise you.”

I leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “Why are you so good to me?”

“It is easy to be good to you. You have a good soul.”

So I dragged myself home, after receiving hugs and assurances from the other servers that they wouldn't steal my regular customers. I was hardly in the door of my apartment, hadn't even put the lamb in the refrigerator, before the phone rang. I wasn't afraid to answer it. I had nothing more to lose.

“Toni?” said a male voice. It was Chris. “You've been trying to reach me?”

“For a week,” I said.

“Sorry. I had to go out of town. I figured if it was an emergency, you'd call my secretary.”

“I tried.”

“She had to take unexpected medical leave while I was gone.” There was a sudden, startled silence. “Was it an emergency?”

“It was urgent.”

“Is Ben okay?”

“I wouldn't say he's okay yet, but he will be.”

“What happened?”

There was fear in Chris's voice. Part of me could empathize with that fear. I felt it every minute of every day. Another part of me wanted to wrap it around his neck.

“Toni—what's going on?”

“I'm going to tell you,” I said. “But I want you to hear me out like a father, not like an attorney.”

“Okay.” His voice grew careful. “What's up?”

I took myself to the front window where I could see Ethel's hydrangeas, and I told him everything. For once, he didn't interrupt me with a string of objections. He let me finish before he exploded.

“Do you have any idea what you've gotten yourself into?” he said.

“I have a very clear idea. I know what's ahead.”

“I wish you'd discussed this with me first.”

“And I was to do that how? You were incommunicado.”

“Do you know that when they find out they don't have a case against Bobbi, she can turn around and sue you—us—for everything we have?”

I would have smashed the phone right through the window if
something in his voice hadn't given him away. It was high-pitched and frantic—the voice of someone about to panic. I'd heard it in myself enough times over the past five months to recognize it. I let my own voice go calm and low.

“Chris,” I said.

“What? I
can't believe—”

“I know you can't believe, but you have to. There's no way around it anymore. You can scream and yell and carry on all you want to, but it isn't going to go away. Our son was molested on multiple occasions, by three different people, all in our own family. It's impossible to accept, but you have to. If you can't, I can't let you see Ben. He has to have support and he has to be believed. He's so vulnerable, one shadow of doubt from you and we'll lose him.”

“What do you mean, we'll lose him'?”

“His little spirit will bury itself under all that guilt and shame, and we'll raise a son who hates us both and hates himself worse. Do you know what his life will be like if we let that happen?”

It was absolutely quiet. I waited.

“You really believe it happened,” he said.

“I know it did.”

“How? How can you be so sure?”

There was agony in his every word. As much as I wanted to rattle his teeth, I felt for him.

“I heard him tell it. It came out of his sweet little mouth, in his own innocent words.”

“He couldn't be making it up?”

“No.”

“You didn't coach him?”

“Don't even try to go there with me.”

“I'm sorry. This is just too much.” Chris let out a long, slow breath. “I'm not calling you a liar. Please don't think that.”

“I don't care what you call me. This isn't about me—or you. It's about Ben.”

“I know, but you're his mother.”

“The state attorney's office isn't his mother. If you can't hear it from me, hear it from Lance Andrews. Use your connections and let
him tell you. Ask to see the videotape. Do whatever you have to do, Chris, but
get
it: This happened, and we have to move on from here.”

There didn't seem to be much more to say. Whatever it was, we fumbled through it and hung up. I was at once alone in a cold, hard way.

“Okay, God,” I said. “Don't let me sink now. Show me what to hold onto.”

I tossed the phone on the couch and flopped down beside it. For the first time I realized I was still wearing my apron. It smelled faintly of garlic and salt pork. I could almost hear Ian reassuring me. The voice of a friend. It helped. So I called another friend. I called Reggie at Faustman and filled her in, and that helped. I called Yancy. She said she'd be over with the stuff for a foot massage. More help. I called Hale, who said he'd go down to Trinity House right away to tell Wyndham that her mother had been arrested. I could hear his car keys already jingling. Then I called Dominica and we prayed together on the phone.

“You know what's weird?” I said.

“A lot of things,” she said. “Which particular piece of weirdness did you have in mind right now?”

“I'm actually okay. I mean, I hate all of this, but I'm not going to fall apart.”

“That isn't weird, Toni. That's God.”

“When am I going to hear that?”

“Sounds like you already are.”

Chris didn't call that night. Uncannily, though, Ben asked me, for the first time in weeks, if he could call his daddy.

“I wanna tell him about my first day of school,” he said.

“Okay,” I said carefully. “Let me get him on the phone while you're in the tub.” I wanted to warn Chris again what his attitude had to be if he was going to talk to Ben.

“I don't wanna take a bath,” Ben said.

“So take a shower.” I tapped on the box on the refrigerator.

“Will you start it for me?”

I tried to get Chris, but he wasn't in. While Ben was flooding the bathroom with his shower, aka attack of the Power Rangers, I called Mama's, hoping against hope that Stephanie would pick it up.

But it was a tiny, little-girl voice that answered.

“Techla?” I said. “Is that you?”

“Who's this?” she said.

“This is your Aunt Toni.”

“Oh.” There was a funny pause.

“Honey—is Aunt Stephanie there?” I said.

“This is Aunt Toni?”

“Uh-huh,” I said patiently. “Let me talk to—”

“Nana, it's Aunt Toni. Are we don't a-'posed to talk to her?”

There was a loud click.

There I was again, cut off and suddenly adrift. From the bathroom I heard, “Mommy?”

“Yeah, Pal?” I said.

“Are you there?”

“I'm here.”

“Okay.”

“You need something?”

“No. I was just checking.”