Behold the Dreamers(41)
“You’re not doing everything! You’ve never done everything! Until you understand that family must always come first—”
“There are times when careers must take priority.”
“There has never been a time when this marriage took priority for you. There’s never been a time when this family took priority for you! Not once! That’s why you’re afraid of us going back to therapy—you don’t want to see how selfish and callous you are!”
“What do you want from me, Cindy?” Clark shouted so loud Neni thought the walls vibrated. “Tell me what you want from me!”
“I just … I want,” Cindy wept, “I want you … I want us … I want the boys to be happy, Clark … That’s all I want … for us to be … for my family to be …”
Neni heard footsteps walking away, and she could tell it was Clark Edwards leaving his wife to cry alone in the kitchen. She heard a thump and a wail, and pictured Cindy slipping from against the counter to the floor. She imagined her sitting alone, crying on the cold kitchen floor.
Neni pulled her head away from the door and leaned against the railing. Should she do something? Would it be appropriate? What could she do besides go to the kitchen and see how she could help Cindy?
She opened the door gently and silently stepped into the kitchen, afraid of startling Cindy, who was sitting where Neni imagined she would be sitting. She was moaning softly with her head bowed, so lost in her misery that she didn’t notice Neni walking toward her. Only when Neni stooped close to her did she lift her red tear-stained face, look Neni in her eyes, and begin weeping again.
“I’m sorry, madam,” Neni whispered. “I’m just … I only want to see what I can do to make you feel better.”
Cindy, with her head bowed again, nodded and sniffled. Neni stood up, her hand supporting her belly, and grabbed the box of tissues on the kitchen island. She sat down next to Cindy and offered her a tissue, which Cindy took, blew her nose with, and began crying in.
“I hope you and Mr. Edwards are going to solve everything soon, madam.”
“He thinks … he thinks he has the right,” Cindy whimpered, slightly above a whisper. “Everyone … they all think they’ve got the right to treat me as they wish.”
Neni nodded, struggling to ignore the smell of alcohol spilling out of Cindy’s mouth alongside her words. Her throat sounded parched, and her words stumbled in a slur, evidence to Neni that the madam had drunk more glasses of wine than she could handle.
“Can I get you some water, madam?” Neni asked.
Cindy shook her head and asked for a glass of wine, which Neni quickly got and returned to her position on the floor.
The madam took a sip, crying as she swallowed. “Every single person … they believe they can treat me … however … anyhow …”
Neni nodded again, the box of tissues in her hands.
“First it was my father … he thought he had the right, you know?” Cindy said. “Drag my mother into that abandoned house … force her … do it to her by force … don’t give a shit about … not care for a second about what would happen to the child …”
She sniffled, took another sip of the wine, and wept.
“And the government … our government,” she moaned, slurring, tears running down her cheeks, snot running down her nose. “They had the right, too. Force my mother to carry the child of a stranger. Force her to give birth to the child because … because … I don’t know why!”
Neni’s throat tightened at the sight of the devastated woman in pearls, confused, though, as she was about which child Cindy was talking about.
“I hated her … but can you blame her? She thought she had the right, too … it was her right. To beat me, and curse at me, and call me fat … because every time she looked at me, she was reminded … I was a reminder … of what he’d done to her … But why? What did I do? It’s never the child’s fault … never the fault of an innocent …”
Neni looked away as Cindy picked up the wineglass from the floor and took a long sip. The realization of who the child was had come on so suddenly that her eyebrows had risen, and her eyes had widened, and she’d had to restrain herself from cupping her mouth. She kept her face turned away, hoping Cindy hadn’t seen the look on it, and not wanting to stare too hard at the wet pitiful mess the madam had become. What was she supposed to say to Cindy now? She couldn’t give her a hug to express what she wanted to say without words, so she had to say something. But what could she say to a drunken confession about the unbearable yoke of a life conceived in violence? What could she say about things she’d never pondered?
“And now Clark has the right, too,” Cindy went on, looking blankly ahead as her voice quivered. “He’s got every … single right to love me far less than he loves his work. He’s got every right to toss me aside, pick me up when it suits him … And Vince …” She pulled out another tissue, pressed her face into it, and began bawling hysterically. “Now Vince, too! He thinks … he’s got every right to abandon me even … though I’ve been a perfectly good mother … even though I never abandoned my mother … even after all those years of …”