Gina and Katie's Excellent Adventure - Part 8 Per Te -For You

Printer-friendly version
Gina and Katie's
Excellent Adventure -
Part 8
Per Te - For You

 
by Andrea Lena DiMaggio
 

Sento nell'aria profumo di te
Piccoli sogni vissuti con me
Ora lo so, non voglio perderti
Quella dolcezza cosᬠsenza etá 
La tua bellezza rivali non ha
Il cuore mio vuole soltanto te

I smell in the air the scent of you
Little dreams had lived with me
Now I know, I don’t wanna lose you
That sweetness which has no age
Your beauty has no rivals
My heart wants only you


  "Gina...do you mind if we do this some other time After reading the blog, my emotions are so raw, I'm afraid I can't stop crying, and I don't want to be this way at a restaurant."

"I've got an idea, sweetie, hear me out before deciding." Gina paused and took in a breath, mostly for courage."

"You're going to be upset anyway. Let me come over there. I'll pick up a pizza and we can just talk okay?"

"I don't know..." Jeannie wanted so much to stop crying. She was angry that she had wasted so much emotion on this already and she was really tired."

"I'll stop at Vesuvius and I can be over there by 5...Katie's meeting with Claire from 5 to 7 or so, I'll just let them know we'll be here...maybe they can go out for coffee." Gina prayed that her friend would agree...she had something to tell...rather show Jeannie that she needed to know. What she would share wouldn’t necessarily change Jeannie's mind about the relationship, but it might provide her with insight about her husband.

"Come on, girl...I know you know you're hungry after all that crying, and you need a shoulder, just in case it starts again."

"O...okay." Jeannie was hungry, Gina was a friend, and Vesuvius had the best onion and garlic pies in the area. At worst, when Todd came home, her kiss was guaranteed to make him think twice before kissing her. She still was angry, despite the tears, and anticipated the 'big talk" was just around the bend, and she wanted to be ready to steel herself to any emotion that was already wearing down her defenses.

Gina hung up the phone and reached into her purse and produced a very worn envelope, the contents of which had been examined the day before by Katie and Claire.

_____________________________________________

"Are you sure you want to do this, Lad?" Katie asked, belying the figure of the attractive woman sitting across from her on the couch. Claire was fifteen minutes early, anxious to hear whatever news Katie had for her. But it was Todd that Katie wanted to talk with, despite the woman in the rust colored brocade skirt and jacket.

"It's too hard in the not-knowing, Dr. Kelly." She said softly. "I need to know what it says. I picked up a little of it when I first read it, but I don’t know Scots Gaelic. All I know is I was hurt that mom left me to read it after she died."

"All right lad." Katie said softly. She had talked with Bobby McTavish, a friend from Ben's old Rugby team who knew Scots-Gaelic." Bobby was a gay cop from Philly and had gone through his own rejection. When Katie asked about the note, Bobby looked at Katie and simply said,”

"No mother should write a letter like this to her own son, no matter what." The look on Bobby's face had been one of sheer horror.

"He wrote the translation above the original" She looked down at the letter and tears came to her eyes. Katie usually was able to maintain objectivity, but now was struggling with it, having been reminded of how her father had treated her. She went on,

"I have to ask once again, Todd...is this something you really want to know. We can stop this right now and destroy this letter."

"No...I need to know just what was so bad." Without ceremony, Katie began to read.

You have been nothing but a disappointment to me since the day you were born. Your brother Craig set an example that apparently you were either unwilling or unable to follow, which I cannot understand. Your brother Jerry had no problem, so I can only assume that you chose not to act like a man. I prefer to believe, without evidence, that you were unwilling, since at least I can say that you were a rebel instead of a pathetic excuse for a man.

You are not my son. I have only two children now, and you are a stranger to me. If I could, I would have preferred to die in childbirth rather than have you as my child, but that would have meant that your brother Jerry would never have been born. You are not welcome at my funeral. I have left instructions that you be reminded of such if you attend. You cannot be prevented from attending the church service, but your brothers will not permit you to attend any other aspect of my funeral.

Agnes Sinclair

Katie was glad in a way that Claire had once again buried her face in the bolster of the couch. She had read this twice in order to be prepared not to break down when she read it to Claire and she was having some success in that she was quiet even though her own eyes were filled with tears. It was Claire who sat on the couch, so nicely dressed, so lady-like and attractive, but it was Todd who wept bitterly. He had gleaned a few words from the letter with his limited understanding of Scots-Gaelic, but in no way could ever have anticipated the intense hatred his mother had for him. His brothers never followed through with the instructions and Craig never told him what his mother had said. So his mother's hatred died with her and so he could never know just why she hated. So he wept. Katie quickly dried her tears and went to retrieve two bottles of water for them.

After almost twelve minutes, Claire raised her head. She had worn no mascara that day, which benefited her face and Katie’s couch. Rocco had jumped up and placed his head on Claire’s lap, waiting for the scratch behind the ears that was more likely to distract Claire at that point…clever dog, I suppose, but he could actually anticipate someone’s need for his presence.

“Tell me what’s goin’ on inside, dear.” Katie said. She knew that Claire wasn’t a rebel, and was entirely convinced that at least Todd thought himself a pathetic excuse.

“She never told me; my Aunt Clare had to tell me…” She wiped her face with her sleeve.

“When she was about eleven or twelve, her father walked up to mom and Uncle Todd and said to them…” Claire choked back a sob, hoping to continue, but was only able to speak after crying again for about ten minutes.

“You’re not my kids anymore, he said! Can you believe that? What a fucking bastard.” Again, it was Claire sitting in front of Katie, but it was Todd who was angry, but sadder.

“Aunt Claire wouldn’t talk about it for the longest time…but she sat me down just before she died.

“Todd, she said….there’s a reason for your mom’s bitterness, and it has nothing to do with you”

Katie leaned forward, wondering where this was leading, but fearful that she already knew. Her fears were confirmed when Todd continued.

“So she says to me, Daddy grew tired of them…they were getting too old.” Todd choked back a sob but continued.

“I can’t even say the words, honey, but just this…he turned his attention to me and your Aunt Annie…do you understand? She looked at me and began to cry. She actually leaned forward and covered her face with the comforter in her lap.”

As carefully and gently, Katie said what no one had been able to speak,

“Your grandfather molested his children, didn’t he?” Katie asked softly.

“Yes…” Claire and Todd wept together for the loss of their mother’s innocence and the shame and guilt that plagued her for her whole life.

When Claire’s weeping began to abate, Katie said to her softly.

I guess that explains her appearance, dear. Remember you told me she hardly ever wore dresses, and she was always lookin’ like she didn’t want to be attractive. This certainly explains it. And maybe why she resented you wearing her clothing? Not to make a joke of it…” It really was sadly ironic,

“You wanted to be just like her, and she didn’t want to be her at all” Katie noted that Claire had stopped crying.

“Are you okay, dear?” Katie smiled warmly

“I think...I guess so,” she said, taking a very large swig from her water bottle.

“I’ve got an idea…let’s go get some coffee. I’ve nothing on the schedule for tomorrow; we can get back to this. Why don’t you come over to my place? I’m sure Gina won’t mind, and she’s cooking
Ká¶ttbullar, Swedish meatballs with gravy, potatoes, jam, and pickled cucumber.” Claire looked at her sideways.

“Great grandmother’s name was Olsson; she’s one quarter Swedish’ on her mothers’ side.”
The two rose to their feet, followed quickly by Rocco, who raced to the front door.

__________________________________________________________


Dimmi che tu giá  il futuro lo sai
Dimmi che questo non finirá  mai
Senza di te non voglio esistere


Tell me that you know the future, yet
Tell me that this is not gonna change
Without you I don’t wanna exist

Jeannie sat at her kitchen table sipping on a diet Sierra Mist while Gina finished her third slice of pizza. Jeannie had hardly touched her first, instead staring at the worn stationary sitting on the table.

“This can’t be true…it can’t be.” Jeannie believed the letter to be true, every bit of it. What she was speaking of was the absolute cold reality that had just slapped her in the face.

“I’m sorry, honey,’ she said to Gina. “We’ve known each other since we were little kids; you were my first friend when we moved here.

“Your first friend? You punched me in the nose!” Gina said with mock indignation. After a rough start, they did become friends. Jeannie’s uncle and aunt lived right around the corner from Gina and her mom. They spent time each summer visiting when Jeannie’s mother grew tired of having to interrupt her series of highballs to see to her daughter’s needs.

"Come fottutamente folle ᨠla nostra famiglia," Jeannie said which evoked a quizzical look on Gina's face.

“Todd’s brother once said this and I never knew it; it’s almost like it should be on the Sinclair family crest “How fucking crazy is our family” She looked at the letter once again, growing angry at a man who had been dead for decades.

“How can anyone do that to a child? What…how?” A look of horror grew wider across Jeannie’s face. “Oh god…Their house…his uncle…they used to stay there in the summer…”

Gina anticipated this, having talked with Katie and Claire the night before. She put down her pizza and diet Coke and walked over to where Jeannie was sitting.

Jeannie picked up the letter, a family relic best left hidden or buried, but out in the open, finally revealing its secrets. She looked at it, almost reverently before ripping it up. She fell onto her arms on the table and began to weep. Gina stood behind her and leaned over and hugged her.

“Oh Dio, cosa dobbiamo fare ora. Mi dicono?” She sobbed and said it over and over.

Gina wasn’t fluent in Italian, but had gleaned enough over the years to know what it meant.

“Oh God, what do we do now? Tell me?” She was glad for one thing, but that was the one thing that held promise, even in the midst of all the madness that had been the Sinclair family. Geavanna Caliva Sinclair was asking God what they…Todd and her...could do.

Gina continued to hug her friend and simply said what her father Johnny used to say,

“Oh mio dolce bambino ... voi tenere amorevole e pregare (oh my sweet child, you keep loving and praying)


Non devo dirtelo, ormai gia lo sai
Che morirei, senza di te

I mustn’t say it to you, by now you know it
That I would die without you

Per Te as sung by Josh Groban
from the Album "Closer"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spa1dt2aC0Y

up
106 users have voted.
If you liked this post, you can leave a comment and/or a kudos! Click the "Thumbs Up!" button above to leave a Kudos

Comments

Oh ! Andrea,

ALISON

'you certainly know how to stretch my heartstrings and to stir my emotions.There is a lot of history coming out here,but whose is it?
This is one of your best.Much love,Alison

ALISON

This reply has been edited for content and formatted to fit your

Andrea Lena's picture

screen! ...I have tried to be authentic and not manipulative, and I hope I have succeeded. Everything, apart from the author's parallel to Todd's crossdressing, is entirely true, with a few disclaimers. For the sake of the story, the events were altered only somewhat. My mother was a sweet woman who was like Todd's Aunt Claire. But she, her brother (who molested me and my sister) and her two younger sisters were likely molested by my grandfather.

The letter is true, but was from my grandmother to my father. The letter was written in a Sicilian dialect that even my mother's in-laws could not decipher. The letter was read by a co-worker of my father, who said the same thing as in the story; no mother should ever write a letter like this to a son.

The quote is true as well, coined a few weeks ago by my brother when we talked about Joann and me. The entire quote was..."I never realized just how fucked up our family (both sides) was." Abuse doesn't happen in a vacuum. I certainly like my own work turning out with happy endings. This one promises no such thing, but you know me. The middle and beginning of almost all my stories start out as a way for me to express how difficult it was growing up. And most of the events happened either to me or my sister, just with a little poetic license to make things work together. Thanks for reading this to the end. And thanks for caring.

P.S. As a nice light contrast to the story here, my dad spent a summer when he was eight working as a circus clown in Iowa and Minnesota - he ran away a lot when he was little and the circus brought him back to Omaha at the end of the tour.

She was born for all the wrong reasons but grew up for all the right ones.
Possa Dio riccamente vi benedica, tutto il mio amore, Andrea

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena

OMG...

...you've done it again Mom. You always raise the emotions many of us have, and still do, experience. I hope this particular tale never ends because it is so deeply personal to so many of us.

Always your lil' Kelly

'Drea, Gina And Katie's

Story is one that needs TISSUE ALERT as a part of its description. If I had known, and could have helped, I'd have done something for you, your sister, and mother. But al least I can be your friend.

    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine
    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine

My dear friend -

Andrea Lena's picture

I do believe that you would go through a brick wall for we who are your friends, Please understand, however, that there are some things that cannot be changed, and are almost irretrievable. The events that these stories are based on happened decades ago. My mother, like Joann and me (and her siblings sadly) was a child when this all happened. This horror had been a part of my family before you were born. And there would have been nothing to know, since both the abuse against my mother by my grandfather and the abuse against Joann and me were done in secret, with threats and coercion and fear, so that no one would know. I respect and appreciate your desire to make things better, but sorry, Stan....you can't. I appreciate your offer of friendship and I gladly accept that. But you must understand, not just for my sake, but for the sake of some of us who write here, this kind of story is essential in the healing process...a catharsis that cleanses us from the filth of the past. Anything that tries to stop the process interferes with the healing. Please understand, as I said the other day, you've been such a great supporter and a good friend. But also understand that this is a grieving process that some of us must go through. My older brother held me in his arms last night and we wept over the loss of my mom and my sis. My younger brother refuses to talk about this, leaving me fearful for his health. You cannot, as much as you want to, take the place of that for me or any other author who writes stories like these...No time machine...no If I knew...When someone writes something this personal, remember just how personal it is. As much as I appreciate the support, you cannot take the place of my brothers or my family. It seems unfair and likely you might feel helpless to sit back and watch the pain unfold...but that's really what you need to do when you read. Again, you are a friend and supporter, but you can't and really shouldn't try to be the one to make it all better. That's a task left to Someone much bigger than either of us. Best regards and thanks again. Andrea

She was born for all the wrong reasons but grew up for all the right ones.
Possa Dio riccamente vi benedica, tutto il mio amore, Andrea

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena

A wonderfully emotional story!!!

I am NOT the sentimental type who sheds tears at the drop of a tissue. I have reality for that. But I have rarely read such moving expositions of emotion as those you have written. As for needing a tissue alert...BRAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Only the finest white linen is worthy of 'our' tears.

Mea the Mighty

without a net

laika's picture

And now, Ladies and Gennelmen, in the center ring, we are proud to present the Amazing Andrea, of the Flying Dysfunctional DiMaggios! Blinded by tears and without the benefit of a safety net, she will perform for you incredible feats of harrowing honesty and terrifying emotional disclosures! So if you have a heart condition, please adjourn to the midway for the duration of tonights performance. And please, absolute silence during this act, she's never attempted this one before..."

Uh, not to reduce your gut-wrenching story here to the level of a cheap diversion, but it does amaze me how you can be telling me something in the morning and then that night I read about it in a fictionalized form, happening to your characters but with different details. I've written honest accounts of very painful personal events, but only after a months, years, sometimes decades have passed, once I've attained some distance, safely mythologized things in my mind to some extent. I know these things are stories that I need to tell, but when I pull them out of their cubbyhole in my brain and weigh them as potential tales I usually go "No, not quite time yet for this one-"; and mostly out of fear, which prompted the high wire act analogy above. So I am in awe of what you're doing here, and find your bravery inspiring.

And you don't just make Todd/Claire's story come alive, but totally get into the thoughts of the other characters, so it's not just a one-sided account, a monologue, but takes in the whole panorama of these folks and their relationships...
~~~Brava! Laika

(Rocco reminds me of my old kitty Gojira. She was always right there whenever I would cry for whatever reason, looking so concerned that it never failed to help a bit...)

.
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.

It happens

kristina l s's picture

I know it does, you see news stories and read things such as this, yet I will never understand it. Ripples of pain and anger down through generations, ah I dunno. Writing confessionals such as this is a curious thing, easy and hellishly hard, sort of embolism enducing and wonderfully liberating at the same time.

Hard to be dispassionate and just read, hey fiction, right? Ummm... Perhaps if enough take a piece of the pain it shrinks, doubt it ever goes away though.

Not having loads of time to read of late I try to keep up, I'll admit I miss bits and the interconnects with earlier stories does create some minor dislocation. I get the imperitive to do it that way though. I wonder a little at the amount of tears too, seems to me a sort of cold dry numbness would rule a lot of the time, but perhaps a purging of sorts?

I am trying to be a litle clinical and follow where this bunch and the central relationship in particular might go. Not a simple thing any way you slice it, fingers crossed and pass a slice of pizza huh. Lovely if tough stuff Andrea.

Kristina

It comes and goes...like the old song

Andrea Lena's picture

...there are days when numbness rules...many days in spurts and starts, but this probably is so teary because much of it is being remembered or happening on a daily basis. Even to the detail of the counselor offering water because of the risk of dehydration. I'm glad that you've looked at this with a clinical eye and almost sideways, since I know that means you're also asking questions.

Thank God this is atypical, I expect. I'm glad we've got things to read here, romance and adventure and such...the fiction folks here have been talking about lately...Who would want to read this all the time. It sucks enough just living it, but there's all the love and care surrounding me here as well; maybe someone will read this and say, I've got to find someone to talk to.

So the only question to be asked at this time...very important I might add for both of us...would you like onion and garlic, or broccoli, feta, and sun dried tomato? Grab yourself a drink out of the fridge and let's talk, dear sister! ;)


She was born for all the wrong reasons but grew up for all the right ones.
Possa Dio riccamente vi benedica, tutto il mio amore, Andrea

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena

Curiously

kristina l s's picture

Had a chicken, feta and cherry tomato one last night. The tomatos were too sweeet or maybe I should have added more chilli, so garlic and onion I think, thanks. Hey it's lunchtime here but a glass of red couldn't hurt right. Write on.

Kristina

The sins of the parents...

Ole Ulfson's picture

passed down the generations.

Though my first instinct is to want to help, I know I can't! All I can do for you and others is to weep for you and extend my offer of friendship and love. Only you and God in His good time can help.

For my part, I'll weep and pray for my friends,

Ole

We are each exactly as God made us. God does not make mistakes!

Gender rights are the new civil rights!