Chapter Wednesday, November 23rd #5
“I’ll get it!” Penny calls from the stairs. Moments later, she walks into the living room.
“Who is it?” Frank asks, analyzing Penny’s concerned expression.
“It’s a lady by the name of Callista Donahue,” Penny says.
Frank’s face instantly darkens. “Shit. That’s Rica’s mother.” He pushes up from the couch and strides out into the hallway without another word.
The rest of us freeze, the mood instantly shifting from light to brittle.
“Hello, Frank,” Mrs. Donahue says, her voice cool, refined.
“What can I do for you, Callista?” Frank replies evenly, his voice devoid of inflection, stripped of any warmth.
“I’m sorry for stopping by like this, unannounced.
I was in the area, and, well, I need to speak with Ronan.
” She has an eloquent way of speaking, her voice slightly nasal, but dignified, proud.
I remember seeing her at her daughter’s trial last April, how well-dressed she was with her pantsuit and Louboutin heels.
If I had to sum her up in one word, I’d say regal.
“Ronan isn’t here,” Frank says, his tone shifting to something lower, protective.
“Frank, I know you don’t harbor the warmest feelings for me. I understand that, but I really do need to speak with my grandson.”
“He isn’t here right now, Callista,” Frank repeats sharply.
“Well, are you expecting him at all today? Because if so, then I’ll wait.”
“Callista, this isn’t—”
“Frank, I’m not here to argue or make your family’s life difficult. I drove over an hour to visit my daughter today—the day before Thanksgiving—in prison, and I won’t be making the trip again anytime soon. My husband… Brian…” Her voice falters. “He’s not well, so…”
It’s silent for a long moment, and I imagine Frank is weighing his options.
“Oh, is that him?” I hear Mrs. Donahue ask suddenly.
My heart lurches into my throat, beating as if it’s trying to escape my body. I glance at my phone. It’s just before four.
“Shit,” Steve mutters and gets up. I follow him into the hallway where Frank stands facing Ronan and Steve’s maternal grandmother.
She looks exactly as I remember her. Her perfectly coifed hair is pulled up and held in place by an elegant hairclip.
She’s thin with impeccable posture, poised, standing straight-backed as if she’s perpetually balancing a book atop her head.
Her elegant fingers are long, nails painted a subtle nude pink.
Today, she dons a rose-pink, knee-length tweed skirt with a matching jacket, as well as her shiny pair of Louboutin high heels.
A large black leather purse hangs from the crook of her elbow.
I take note yet again of her pencil-thin lips and her steel-blue eyes—all so unlike Ronan with his soft, full lips and strikingly green eyes.
Steve doesn’t greet her. He brushes past with a look at Frank, who nods slightly.
I peer through the hallway window as Ronan approaches. My heart tugs in two directions. I’m so glad to see him, yet so terrified of what this meeting might do, or… undo.
Ronan has been doing well lately, though it isn’t always predictable what might trigger him. Some things bounce off him. Other seemingly small things will cause him to spiral into darkness.
Steve intercepts Ronan, who frowns at his brother.
The two talk for a moment and Ronan’s body noticeably tenses, his eyes flitting to the window then back to his brother.
Steve puts his hands on Ronan’s shoulders, talking to him intently for a second longer before the two walk up the short walkway, climb the three stairs to the front door, then step into the house.
Ronan’s eyes lock on me and his face softens the smallest bit.
“Ronan,” Mrs. Donahue says, scanning her grandson’s face, her blue eyes wide.
Ronan doesn’t immediately acknowledge her; he moves straight past her toward me. I reach my hand out for him and he takes it, interlacing his fingers with mine. That warm current fills me like he’s the source of all light. I give his hand a little squeeze before he finally faces his grandmother.
“My god, you look exactly like Brian when he was your age,” Mrs. Donahue says, studying Ronan’s features, her gaze moving over his face, down his tall, muscular body and back again. “Same eyes, same hair, same lips.”
Ronan frowns, his jaw rigid. “What do you want from me?”
She flinches, just barely. “Would it be okay if we sat?”
Frank turns his attention to Ronan. “Ran? Are you okay with her being here?” It’s not about politeness. It’s about Ronan. Only Ronan.
“I’m trying to figure out what exactly it is you want from me,” Ronan says, his eyes locked on his grandmother. I can feel how tightly wound his muscles are, see his jaw flexing as he holds my hand firmly in his. “Why are you here?”
Mrs. Donahue takes a deep breath, working to maintain her composure. But the fidgeting of her fingers tells me she’s frazzled by Ronan’s reception. She lifts her chin. “I’m here to apologize,” she says with a sigh, a look of defeat in her blue eyes.
Ronan’s eyebrows dip, but he doesn’t otherwise speak. His silence is louder than words.
“Ronan, I… Could we please sit?” she asks again, quieter now.
Ronan sighs. “Fine.”
Frank nods and leads the way into the living room.
“I love you,” I whisper to Ronan. He only squeezes my hand.
We take our seats—Frank and Penny on the loveseat, Steve, Ronan, and me on the couch. Mrs. Donahue sits alone in the armchair across from us. It’s a stark contrast.
Mrs. Donahue crosses her ankles and clears her throat. “I think you need to understand the cards you were dealt, Ronan.”
His muscles coil beside me. He’s so tense, I wouldn’t be surprised if he woke up sore tomorrow.
“I know you had a hard life growing up,” Mrs. Donahue says, clasping her hands in her lap. “It didn’t have to be this way. I very much blame myself. I don’t know if you know anything about what Brian did to Rica and my son, Cormac.”
“Yeah, I do,” Ronan says simply.
She nods. “Brian was strict when Rica and Cormac were growing up. He very much believed in corporal punishment. Brian himself grew up with a father who regularly hit him, and his father him, and so on, from what I understand. If I tried to come to my children’s aid, Brian would…
well, he made sure we all understood who the head of the household was,” she says, sitting up straight, her hand moving to a small scar on her left cheekbone.
My heart aches.
“Honestly, he wasn’t like that before we married, but once we were and had moved to Westchester he… I think it was his work, maybe. He was under a lot of stress,” she says, sinking briefly into herself.
She collects herself, plastering a proud look onto her perfectly made-up face.
“Anyways, I wanted you to understand that your mother did what she was taught, what she grew up with. She perpetuated a painful, vicious, violent cycle that had been passed down through the Donahue family tree for generations. It was always very much about respect and obeying. A failure to obey was synonymous with disrespect, which was not tolerated by any of the Donahue men,” she says like she’s reciting an undeniable truth.
Anger ignites within me. Mrs. Donahue’s words resonate with what I learned during the trial in April, when I listened to Ronan testify—lay himself bare before strangers—for hours, and saw the surveillance video in which Rica repeatedly accused Ronan of disrespecting her, of disobeying her rules, before she viciously beat him.
Ronan’s profile is unreadable, his silence suffocating.
“I should’ve left Brian the first time he hit me. At the very least I should have left him when he began laying his hands on our children,” she says, her voice cracking. “I wasn’t strong enough.”
She directs her gaze to her hands in her lap, and suddenly she reminds me of myself, how I made excuses for Adam’s violence, how I didn’t recognize what he was doing to me as abuse, how it took Ronan’s words to finally make me understand that nothing that had happened to me was my fault.
She takes a few steadying breaths before she squares her shoulders, replacing the expression of sadness with a stoic determination.
I’m impressed and simultaneously appalled by how well she maintains her proud composure.
“I had nothing; Brian had always provided for me. I had no job experience, no real education. I married into money, and Brian was good at reminding me that I was nothing without him. What was I supposed to do?”
She raises her thin blonde eyebrows at us as if daring us to contradict her.
“My children and I would have been homeless. I couldn’t possibly tell my parents, my friends.
On the outside, my family was picture-perfect.
My children went to private Catholic schools, they were well-dressed, we drove the nice cars, lived in a beautiful home,” she says, the words rushing from her mouth.
I wonder if this is the first time she’s ever said these things out loud to anyone.
“I had no right to complain. Brian worked so hard, climbed the military ranks quickly. He was disciplined, and all he ever asked of me and his children was to obey and respect him. In fact, those words were in our wedding vows,” Mrs. Donahue says with a nod.
“He expected Rica and Cormac to do as he told them. Do well in school, don’t slack, be disciplined like their dad, don’t complain.
He provided for us. It was great, except when he became physical.
Cormac left as soon as he turned eighteen.
I don’t know where he went; he just disappeared.
I haven’t spoken to him in over twenty years.
I don’t even know if he’s still alive.” I note the pain in her voice as her composure slips.
“I pray he was able to build a beautiful family for himself, that he was able to find peace. But those Donahue genes… I worry…”
Her words taper off, and the room falls still. Ronan’s eyes are unfocused, his lips pressed together. I wonder what he’s thinking.