Believe Like a Child (40 page)
H
annah rushed over to embrace Remo and Patrick got up and walked over to Lucy and Alessa. He smiled at the child and asked, “Was Santa good to you this year?”
She beamed in her new jeans and sweater, then followed it up with a roll of her eyes. “Yes, Remo and Alessa were very good to me,” she chirped. “I got a lot of great new clothes.”
Patrick laughed at her mature answer and turned to greet Alessa. Hannah too finally acknowledged her daughter-in-law, but her greeting was mechanical, lacking in the warmth and love that her husband was so generous with. Alessa wished they had been closer. She wondered why the woman didn’t like her. She knew Hannah wasn’t happy that Remo had chosen her as his wife, but hoped she could see that her son wasn’t suffering because of Alessa’s past.
Having to pretend that everything was fine between them gnawed at Alessa. Hannah made no bones about disliking her daughter-in-law and persistently treated her as if she were shit stuck on the bottom of her shoe, shit that wouldn’t come off. Hannah’s bullshit was taking its toll on Alessa. She had been the more gracious of the two, as Remo had wanted her to be, but it did occur to Alessa that no one was expecting the same from Hannah. She could get away with behaving like the unreasonable bitch she was.
After a lavish Christmas dinner, Hannah announced that she wanted to take pictures by the decorated tree in the study. All the guests moved in and began milling about, refreshing their drinks at the bar and chatting excitedly.
“Let’s get started,” Hannah said. “First, I want to take picture with just the family in it.”
As Alessa and Lucy spontaneously took a step forward for the picture, Hannah looked over and said pointedly, “Remo, come over here, handsome. I want to get one with just the family.”
Remo, who had been engrossed in conversation with one of Patrick’s friends until his mother called out to him, hadn’t noticed how Alessa and Lucy had stopped in their tracks when excluded from the family photo.
Standing next to his mother, he called out, “Alessa and Lucy, come on and join us.”
They both stayed where they were, as if their feet had been bolted to the ground.
“Come on, honey,” Hannah sweetly stated to her son. “Let’s just get one with the three of us.”
Oblivious to what had transpired minutes ago, Remo smiled for the camera and after the family photo session was over, joined one of his parents’ neighbors at the bar.
At this point, Alessa and Lucy saw one of Hannah’s friends approaching them. Alessa knew her to be a nice woman who was the mother of eight kids. So acceptance came naturally to her.
“Don’t worry about Hannah,” she whispered to Alessa. “Someday, she’ll come around. And if she doesn’t, well, then, from what I’ve seen, that’s her loss.”
Her words made Alessa feel less alone in the room full of people. She thanked the woman and moved to the bar to be near Remo. She got a glass of Merlot for herself and Remo made Lucy a Shirley Temple. The wine helped Alessa relax a little, but now being in the same room as her mother-in-law was like a thorn in her side. She was eager to love both of Remo’s parents, but had begun to understand that Hannah wouldn’t give her an inch. It was a sad realization for her, because she wanted nothing more than Remo’s happiness. If only his mother could see that they both wanted the same thing! Alessa just couldn’t understand Hannah’s veiled hostility toward her, wondering, occasionally, if she wasn’t plain jealous of her daughter-in-law, the woman with whom she now had to share Remo’s love and attention. It was a sick thought, she felt, but couldn’t reject it entirely whenever she saw Hannah fall all over Remo.
As Alessa and Remo made their way through the crowd of guests, stopping to greet and chat with some of them, she felt numb. Standing within earshot of Hannah, she overheard her bragging to her friends about how Remo had opened the Outside Inn.
“Isn’t the name just so creative?” Hannah remarked. “My son really has a gift. Patrick and I are so proud of him.”
Alessa’s stomach flip-flopped. She wanted to stomp on her mother-in-law for deliberately leaving her out of the picture altogether. It wasn’t that she needed credit for what she’d done. But Hannah’s refusal to even consider the possibility of Alessa’s contribution to something she was so proud of infuriated her. Remo’s mother made Alessa feel the way she used to as a child—unloved, used and abused. No one seemed to have noticed and everyone was going about their evening, as though it were all perfectly normal.
For Alessa, the hours that passed seemed like an entire week and it was a relief to her when Remo asked if she was ready to go home. Lucy, in the meantime, had fallen asleep on one of the large leather sofas in the study. Remo hugged his parents’ goodbye. Turning to embrace Alessa, Patrick sensed from her body language and her expression that something had upset her deeply. He wondered what he had missed, but suspected Hannah had something to do with it. Patrick couldn’t understand why his wife disliked Alessa so intensely. He knew she was protective of Remo, but in all fairness, he had to acknowledge that her stubbornness in refusing to accept Alessa as a member of their family was beyond reason and cruel.
“T
hat was a nice Christmas party, don’t you think? Did you enjoy it?” Remo asked.
Alessa looked over at him and curbed the impulse to scream ‘No, it was
not
nice! Your mother is a fucking bitch, a whore who goes out of her way to make me feel like I don’t exist!’ Instead, she said quietly, “Yeah, sure, it was nice.”
Remo recognized that familiar tone right away. Something had obviously happened to upset Alessa. He himself had enjoyed the day and didn’t want to ruin it by stirring up shit, but he needed to resolve whatever was bothering her just so she wouldn’t be agitated for days. “What happened?” he asked. “Did I miss something?”
Alessa sighed deeply. She didn’t feel like starting this conversation, but thought it was important for her to get it out and into the open. “Remo, it doesn’t really matter,” she sighed.
“What doesn’t really matter, Alessa?” he retorted abruptly. “Why can’t we ever go to my parents and just have a good time? Why do we always have to deal with this bullshit after we leave?”
Alessa was fuming by now. “Because,” she enunciated clearly, “your mother treats me and Lucy like shit. That’s why!”
She saw his grip tighten on the steering wheel.
“What did she do?” he finally asked.
“Well, let’s see,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Did you happen to notice that Lucy and I weren’t in the ‘family’ photo? Did that strike you as odd at all? Or, did you hear how she bragged to her stupid friends about you taking care of homeless people. It’s as if I don’t even exist! I even overheard her telling one of her friends that you and that particular friend’s daughter had made such a cute couple and she wondered why that didn’t work out. What the fuck, Remo? How much more shit do I have to eat?”
Having heard her out and recognized the anguish in her voice, Remo realized how Alessa was feeling.
“You’re right,” he said sympathetically. “You and Lucy should have been in the family photo. As for that girl I dated, she was a warthog. She was stuffy and boring. I went out with her twice. I never even had sex with her. So I really can’t figure out why my mom said that to her friend.”
“I don’t really care if you had sex with the girl or not, Remo,” Alessa told him. “You know that shit doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is how your mother goes out of her way to make me feel like I’m just not good enough. I’m annoyed and since I promised you that I would take the high road, I feel like I have to put up with her bullying me in silence! So now, she’s just gets to lay it on me as thick as she wants to and I have to suck it all up. I don’t know if I can keep doing it much longer, Remo. Not only does Hannah treat me worse than ever, she has now begun to humiliate me in front of others. I have to keep ‘eating shit’, which makes me look like a stupid idiot who doesn’t have the guts to stand up for herself. Since when did it all become my problem to keep the peace?”
Alessa began to cry, her tears coursing silently down her cheeks as she sat next to Remo. She was already exhausted from the daylong mental torture she had endured and now, to make matters worse, she and her husband were fighting over his mother.
“Why are you crying, Alessa?” Remo pleaded, dismayed to see how upset she was.
Her face was expressionless, as she stared out the car window and said, “Because God hates me.”
Remo pulled the car over to the side. “Come here, you big baby,” he said. “Of course God doesn’t hate you. I know how my mom is and she’s just proud of the things that I have done. She doesn’t mean to be hurtful. She just can’t see that I can love you both at the same time. She’s a stupid idiot.”
Alessa burst out laughing and clung to him as if he were a life raft.
“Look Alessa, I’ll make you a deal,” he said gently. “From now on, if you don’t want to come with me to see my parents, you don’t have to, all right? If it makes you feel this bad, you don’t have to come with me. I want you to be happy and I certainly don’t want Lucy growing up thinking she isn’t a part of my family, because both of you
are
my family. Understand?”
Alessa sat back against the car seat. “I just wish it didn’t have to be this way. That’s all. Your dad seems to like me, though.”
Remo laughed. “My dad loves you and Lucy,” he said. “So does my mom. She just doesn’t know how to express her feelings.”
The objection to his last statement bubbled up within her, but Alessa decided to leave well enough alone. It had been a long day, with a less-than-great ending. As they drove the rest of the way home in silence, Remo thought about his mother. He wondered why Hannah was being so vicious to his wife. Whatever explanation he might have tried to pacify Alessa with, deep inside, he knew his mother was just being a bitch. He was torn, as he remembered how loving she had been to him as a child. They had done everything together. She was a real June-fucking-Cleaver and now she had turned into Mommie Dearest with the one person he loved most in the world. He didn’t know how to reconcile the two startlingly different personas anymore. He was beginning to see how unfair it was to Alessa that she was expected to tolerate his mother’s shit, but couldn’t dish it back out for fear of hurting his feelings. Remo decided he would talk to his dad about it in the morning. Maybe Patrick would have an idea about tackling the problem.
P
atrick wasn’t surprised to receive a call from his son the following day. “I figured you’d call this morning,” he said. “Alessa seemed pretty tense when she left here last night. What happened? Did she tell you?”
Remo let out a heavy sigh. “Nothing significant, Dad. Just a bunch of bullshit. Alessa and Lucy weren’t in the ‘family’ photo. Mom gave me all the credit for the Outside Inn. It wasn’t anything specific. It all boils down to how Mom treats her or, should I say, pretends she doesn’t exist. Alessa and Lucy have had enough of that shit to last a lifetime. I just don’t know what to do about it anymore and thought maybe you would have a solution.”
“I understand, Remo. I’ve noticed what your mom’s been up to. She isn’t consciously
trying
to be evil. She just can’t come to terms with the fact that you belong to another woman now. You were always ‘her boy’ and now it seems to her that you’ve found someone to replace her.”
“Okay, Dad,” Remo grunted. “But frankly, I find that a little creepy. I mean, Alessa is my wife and Lucy, my child. Neither of them is my mother. Yuck!”
Both men burst out laughing at the thought.
“Okay,” Remo finally said, “so what do I need to tell Mom to reassure her that she’s still important to me? Christ, women are a fucking pain in the ass!”
Both men laughed again, as if they had just shared a great secret, but it was all in good fun.
“Let me talk to your mother, son,” Patrick suggested. “I’ll call you back and let you know how things turn out.”
Remo hung up the phone, still troubled by the thought that his mother stubbornly refused to admit how happy he was with Alessa and continued to make trouble for them. He just couldn’t understand it. This was the same mother who had been loving and supportive all through his life. She had been fond of his friends, even the female ones. Of course Alessa was the first ‘girlfriend’ he had ever brought home, but still, Hannah was aware that he dated girls.
Alessa walked into the kitchen and broke into his thoughts. Remo noticed how beautiful she looked, with her hair tousled and her eyes still half-closed from sleep. He took her by the hand and silently led her back into their bedroom.
“Be quiet,” he whispered, “we don’t want to wake Lucy.”
“Well, good morning to you too,” she whispered, allowing herself to be led.
Later that morning, Patrick called his son to tell him that he had talked to Hannah. She had apparently got really pissed off, demanding to know why both of the men in her life were turning against her for Alessa’s sake, and stormed out of the house.
“Sorry, son,” Patrick said apologetically. “I think I just made it worse for Alessa. Now your mother thinks she’s stealing
me
from her too!”
The two men laughed at the absurdity of it all and Remo promised his father he would call his mother later that afternoon.
After their conversation was over, Remo hung up the phone, wondering what it was going to take for his mother to lighten up and give Alessa a chance. He would just have to wing it, when he got her on the phone. Remo never did call his mother that day. Instead, he decided to get involved in the preparations for the post-Christmas party the residents of the Outside Inn had planned. Alessa helped to coordinate and they had plenty of food to eat from all the donations they’d received from local businesses. All the residents were there and by seven p.m. that evening, the party was in full swing. The residents of each apartment in the Outside Inn had decided to keep their door open and people milled about, moving from floor to floor, apartment to apartment, enjoying each other’s company. They got along well. Many knew each other from the streets and the older residents always looked out for the younger ones.
Alessa thought it had been a great evening and a great idea. By the end of the night, Remo had forgotten about the problems between Alessa and his mother. Now he climbed the stairs to the third floor with his wife by his side. Having tucked Lucy in bed, they went back out to the living room for a mug of hot chocolate before going to bed themselves. They chatted about the day, feeling content about all the things they had done that had brought them to this moment.
“This doesn’t seem real to me, sometimes,” Alessa told him. “It’s hard to believe that we have done all that we have in the short time we’ve been together.”
Remo hugged her tight. “This is only the beginning,” he said. “There is a lot more that we can do together. Lucy is thriving and we’ve gotten thirty-six people off the streets. We rock, don’tcha think?”
Alessa laughed. “Well, I was thinking more about how wonderful it makes me feel that we could help others. Like
they
rock, but of course, we rock too. Lucy is so smart, Remo. She is going to do great things when she grows up.”
He leaned back into the sofa. “Agreed. We need to make sure that she keeps up the good work she’s doing in school. You know, at first, I was a little apprehensive about raising her around all these strangers, but I can see now that she learns from them and they learn from her too. I couldn’t ask for a better wife and daughter.”
It was late and Alessa was finishing her hot chocolate, when the phone rang. Remo went into the kitchen to answer it. Alessa could hear his voice begin to rise and went to see who was on the phone.
“No Mom, that’s
not
what’s going on,” she heard Remo say in exasperation. “You’re being paranoid. Dad and I just thought that you could be a little nicer. You could be a little more accepting of them. Alessa and Lucy are my family and if you don’t accept them, then you don’t accept me either.”
Remo held out the phone and looked at Alessa. “She hung up on me.”
Infuriated, she asked, “What was
that
about? What did you two guys do?”
Remo explained how he had talked to his father and the two men had agreed that Patrick would confront Hannah about the events that had taken place on Christmas Day.
Alessa started to shake. She said through clenched teeth, “I don’t want your mom being nice to me, just because you and your dad tell her she has to be nice. If she hates me, then fine, she can hate me! Now she’s
really
going to hate me, because she’s going to think I am pitting you against her. What the fuck were you thinking? God, Remo, I don’t need this fucking bullshit in my life!”
Remo was now irritated both with his mother and Alessa. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do to make things better between them. Finally, he picked up the phone and called his mother back. When she answered, he could tell she was crying.
“Mom?” he said, treading carefully, “all I’m saying is that it makes it hard for us to visit you and Dad, when you treat Alessa and Lucy like they don’t belong.”
“You know what, Remo?” Hannah screamed,
“you
were the one who tied yourself down with that lost cause and now I’m suddenly supposed to like her! Well, I’ll tell you honestly that she certainly wasn’t what I had in mind for you. I always saw you with someone strong, someone with a career and a family, for God’s sake! Not some lost soul, whose family won’t even associate themselves with her!”
Remo’s face turned red. “Alessa’s family is a pack of morons! She struggled to get through her childhood with those lousy people. Why would
you
want to make it hard for her to be a part of our family? I thought we were better than that, Mom. I thought you raised me not to judge others and to be open-minded. Why, all of a sudden, did that change?”
Hannah was openly crying now. “Because I thought that when you finally married, I would gain a daughter too. Alessa isn’t like a daughter at all. She doesn’t
know
how to be a daughter. She sure knows how to be a stripper and a prostitute, though, doesn’t she? I know
everything
about her. And I had to find it out from our neighbors, of all people! How do you think that makes me feel? My son married to a prostitute! What the hell were you thinking? Did you think I would never find out? Of course you didn’t, because you knew I would never agree to you marrying a whore!”
Remo willed himself to stay calm, as she ranted on, “Did she tell you all of this earlier? Or are you just beginning to find out about it now, like me?”
“I already knew,” he told her quietly. “She told me everything on our first date, long before I fell in love with her. She told me so that I could make an informed decision before we got serious about each other.”
“Well, then, how could you have stayed with her?” Hannah retorted sharply. “She had sex with men for money, Remo! She danced
naked
for them! God only knows what diseases she might have! And how exactly did she ‘find’ Lucy? None of this makes any sense to me. I just don’t understand what you see in her!”
Remo said with authority, “Then, Mom, you just can’t see at all. I have to go now. It’s late and I need to get some sleep. We can talk again tomorrow, but I want to tell you now that nothing will change how I feel about Alessa and Lucy. Nothing you can say or do will stop me from loving them. Good night, Mom.”
He turned and looked at Alessa. She was exhausted. Alessa felt sorry for him too. She knew this was ripping him in half and he felt like shit.
“Your mom found out about my dark past, huh?” she asked.
Remo sneered, “Yeah, that stupid motherfucker who used to get lap dances from you at the club must have said something to someone and it got back to my mom. Maybe I should tell her about her neighbor’s little fantasy, about how he likes to go to strip clubs and dress up in diapers when he’s getting a private lap dance!”
“No, you won’t!” Alessa snapped. “It’s nobody’s business. Just because we are going through a rough time doesn’t mean I want to destroy someone else’s marriage. Okay?”
Remo dropped his head. “Yeah, fine. I won’t tell her anything about the neighbor. Let’s go to bed. I’m thoroughly worn out and just want to sleep.”