54. THEO
54
THEO
I stare at the garden around us, little cherub statues poking out like they’re listening. Cursing myself for confessing it all out here, in this sacred place of happy memories. She laces her fingers in mine, pulling me to her through the tips of our touching hands.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say first. Why am I the one who has to hurt her?
Movement, purpose, direction are all impossible because I’m paralyzed by the sudden possibility of losing Magdalen before she’s even mine.
‘You need to stop saying that.’ Her tone is light but the pressure of her hand around mine gives away how nervous she is. I’m sorry, I think again and she squeezes my hand. Can you feel it? Can you feel how scared I am to lose you?
I let go of her hand, tugging at the collar of my shirt. For the first time in seventeen years, I coax the memory to come back.
I wasn’t kidding. Going upstairs that day to the Savoys’ was nothing compared to what happened years before.
The attic was dingy and smelled like stale onions because it was right over the kitchen. When Mamma cooked, the smell floated to the top of the house and became trapped in this dusty room with only the one small window in the corner. There were always spiders above the door, which is why I didn’t like coming up here. Unless of course it was to use the homemade telephone across the wire and talk to Dante. I usually ran through the door quickly, hating how thin those spiders were. It looked like they were made from pieces of Anika or Mamma’s hair left in the bathtub and it gave me the creeps.
I was eight years old. My favourite movie was E.T. , which I saw with both my parents and it made all of us cry. When the lights came on in the theatre, I looked at my mum and dad, both their elbows brushing against my own, and felt so safe. The three of us, connected by a little alien named E.T.
That week, I was trying to save up money to see the movie again with Dante, and I followed the trail of bronze coins all the way to the attic. I could have asked Papa but I wanted him to be proud that I was resourceful. That’s how I ended up there. We usually never go to the attic; the spiders were a really big deal. I remember feeling surprised by how little dust there was on the doorknob. Each time I had been there, there was always a pile of dust by the entrance and some more coating the doorknob. But it was gone, almost like it had been cleaned. Mamma complained about how the extra eleven stairs hurt her knees so it wasn’t worth cleaning the space unless my grandparents were coming to town. I thought, Are Nonna Gina and Nonno Canio coming to town? Surely Mamma would have told me; usually their visit involves her screaming at all of us to clean our rooms and getting out the solid gold rooster Nonna Gina bought them for one of their anniversaries. So I made a mental note to myself that Papa might say no to me going to the movies because I’d have to clean my room.
Approaching the door, I heard a muffled noise escape from behind the wood. Despite the pounding in my chest, curiosity egged me on, pressing my ear against the keyhole to make out the sound. For a second, I thought it could be an animal, trapped in our little attic, maybe a bird that’d snuck through the terracotta tiles of the roof and couldn’t find its way back. But my thought was interrupted, the sound becoming clearer now: breathier and distinctly human. It sounded like crying, but not quite. The air felt thick in my throat but I willed the muscles in my fingers to push lightly against the door. Through the darkness, that’s when I saw Papa.
Red in the face and biting down on his bottom lip, so hard that it was almost white. I could tell even from the doorway. Jaw loose, and my little arm still against the wood of the door, I actually felt myself wobble. My stomach hurt really fucking bad and I thought I was going to be sick right there, on the spot. My father’s trousers were down to his ankles, the metal buckle of his belt hitting the floor over and over again as a woman with her skirt above her bottom was bent over in front of him. One hand was wrapped tightly around her waistline yanking her to him, hard so that the skirt tore all the way down, and I saw the curve of her butt. She says, ‘Yes, yes,’ and my father laughs happily. His other hand was holding her head down, tangled in the messy curls. I looked away, and I guess that’s when I made a noise because, suddenly, he’s looking at me. My father’s body continued to move back and forth behind the woman, teeth still biting down on his lip as he finds my eyes. Through the dark I could make out that the woman had black smeared under her eyes, but most of her hair was covering her face so it took me a second to realize that I knew who she was. That I saw her every day.
‘Came to watch, Theodore?’ my father mouthed, Mrs Savoy still unaware I was there as she intertwined her hand on top of my father’s, throwing her head back with a grin.
‘Dexter,’ she breathed, and then he yanked her head further back, exposing her neck and bending forward, planting a loud, wet kiss. A horrible, unforgettable sound.
‘Hurry up, Vittoria.’ He continued bumping into her behind faster and Mrs Savoy shut her eyes and cried out, really loud, and she tried to lift her head up but he forced it down.
‘Dexter,’ she said through strangled breaths. ‘I love you, Dex.’
‘Yeah, me too.’ When he spoke, he spat a little on the top of her head, a little drool dripping down his chin.
I hear myself screaming for my papa, my eyelashes wet and heavy, but he cuts off my scream. ‘You’ll thank me later, son.’
‘What’d you say?’ Mrs Savoy asked, a little dazed.
A few moments later, he pushed Mrs Savoy away and exhaled harshly, running his hand through his hair. She stumbled forward, losing her footing, trying to reach for one of the cardboard boxes but instead toppling forward against the wall with the window.
‘Papa?’ I said, confused, because what else can you do but call for your father when you’re lost?
‘We were just playing, Theo. Don’t tell you mother – it’s our...’ He bent down to pick up his trousers, huffing loudly. ‘It’s our little game.’
‘Oh my god.’ Mrs Savoy finally sees me and desperately tries to lower her skirt, but it’s torn.
‘A game,’ I repeat after him, looking over to Mrs Savoy, who sat huddled underneath the window, her head in between her legs. She massaged her hair, rocking slightly like a mother rocking a child. Except in this case, she was both mother and child.
It was the first time I saw an adult that looked smaller than a child.
‘Mamma can play too,’ I said, taking a step back, but Papa was on me before I even knew what was happening. His hand, the one that had been tangled in her hair, was now wrapped around my neck and he squeezed so tightly, I could hear my heartbeat in my own throat. I thought about how he’d connected all three of us now through the curl of his fingers against my throat. A month ago, it was my elbows tucked safely between my mum and dad at the movie theatre, and now my father looks down on me, dried spit at the corner of his mouth and eyes black, alien, but with nothing like the kindness of E.T., and I felt something sever between us. He gripped me tighter, my vision dotting black, and I was only faintly aware of Mrs Savoy sobbing next to us.
‘Mamma doesn’t play this game with me, you understand?’ His breath was heavy and rancid. ‘She’s no good.’
‘Yes, Papa,’ I choked out. The words felt rotten in my mouth. It’s what I said when he taught me how to cross a busy road, and when he asked if I wanted to learn more about Heliopolis during Christmas break. And now I said it as a plea.
It was at this point that my papa stopped being my papa. He became a shadow of someone I once knew to be filled with love, now empty and dark in the centre. If I reached forward a little, I was sure my hand would go right through him.
My neck ached and I gagged in his palm. Looking back, it was clear he was on some drug. Maybe cocaine – I think he’s always been partial to cocaine. When I looked over at Mrs Savoy, she was now standing up, pacing, hands still in her hair. She kicked something beneath her that she sat on when she fell. My father let my throat go, shoving me back against the door, and I gasped, gagged, bile rising in my throat. I wanted to run away. But where to go? Here was the man I’d spent my youth chasing, only to find I’d been running the wrong way.
‘Fucking hell, Vittoria. If all you’re going to do is cry in the corner, you can leave.’ He stretched his hands above his head lazily and then zipped up his trousers. The noise serrated against the silence, making me flinch.
Vittoria ran past us, her hands covering her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered in my vague direction. I looked over to where she had been standing a moment before and saw the tin can, our telephone across the wire, crushed flat. The string attached to the end hung limply from the windowsill. Connection severed.
I have kept the secret for seventeen years. It has hurt. My first introduction to sex was through my own father’s brute force. I still feel my tiny neck, my little bones, crushed underneath the weight of the hands that he once embraced me with. And now my neck, bigger, responsible for holding my head up high, still feels the strength of his grip for the rest of my life. So, until now, I’ve kept my head low. Unable to stretch tall just yet. But one day, I hope I will. For me. For Mamma. For my Magdalen. For my dreams at night. I really hope.