The Two-Family House(71)

What was Natalie doing, going to the coatroom with a man? Rose got up from the stool and stuck her head out the doorway.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Natalie yelped in surprise and dropped the plate she was holding. Pastries and wedding cake were strewn across the floor. Cream, berries and frosting were everywhere. The young man frowned and bent down to survey the damage.

“You scared me,” Natalie told Rose. Then she looked at the carpet. “This is a mess. Johnny, can you tell one of the waiters to bring a broom?”

“Sure thing.” The young man ran back in the direction of the ballroom. Rose thought he looked familiar, but she couldn’t place him.

“Aunt Rose, are you feeling all right? Uncle Mort was looking for you when Mimi and Edward cut the cake. Why are you in the coatroom?” Natalie was trying to brush off some of the frosting that had landed on her shoe.

“What am I doing here? What are you doing, sneaking off to the coatroom with that man?”

Natalie laughed. “Man? Johnny’s my cousin—you’ve met him a million times. I told my mom we were leaving the ballroom for a while. The music’s too loud and Edward’s sister keeps making me dance with people I don’t know. Johnny and I wanted to eat our dessert where no one would bother us.”

“Hmph. You expect me to believe that the two of you were going to the coatroom to eat dessert?”

“What else would we be doing?”

Rose held up her hands in frustration. “Hasn’t your mother taught you anything?”

“Why are you being so mean?” Natalie could see that her aunt was irritated, but she couldn’t understand what was making her so upset.

Rose took two steps toward her. “Why do you think all those men wanted to dance with you? I saw the looks they were giving you in that dress.”

Natalie took two steps back. “I don’t even like this dress. They made me wear it.”

“Well, your mother never should have let you out of the house in it.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say!”

“Don’t you dare raise your voice to me!”

“Hey—quit yelling at her!” Johnny had returned from the ballroom. He had brought along one of the waiters, and Helen was just a few steps behind. When Natalie saw her mother, she started to cry. Johnny glared at Rose, and the waiter retreated from the scene, saying he would return later to clean up the floor.

“Shhh, shhh.” Helen held Natalie and whispered, “It’s all right, sweetheart. It’s all right.” Then Helen turned to Johnny. “Take her back to the party, honey. You two go have dessert. I’m going to stay and talk to Rose.”

Once the kids were out of earshot, Helen’s composure evaporated. She was livid.

“What did you say to her?” she demanded.

“Nothing.” Rose retreated to the back of the coatroom, but Helen followed her.

“Nothing? She’s a young girl, Rose. You were attacking her!”

“If she’s such a young girl, why are you letting her parade around in that skimpy dress?”

“For heaven’s sake, Rose, it’s the dress Mimi picked! Dinah and Judith are wearing it too!”

“Dinah and Judith aren’t thirteen.”

“Why do you care what she’s wearing all of a sudden? Since when do you care about anything Natalie does?”

Rose almost smiled. “It isn’t easy having someone else tell you how to raise your own child, is it?”

“Stop it. I never told you how to raise Teddy.”

“Didn’t you? What would you call it, then?”

“At least I didn’t pretend he wasn’t there. You act like Natalie doesn’t even exist!”

“She’s your daughter, not mine. That was the deal we made thirteen years ago.”

Helen’s face crumpled, and she put one hand on the wall to steady herself. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “We never made any deal. You know that. We never even spoke about it. That night … it was like we were both in a dream. Between the blizzard and Mort and Abe being away … it was like it was supposed to happen. I wanted a girl so badly. You needed a boy so much. I thought we’d raise them together in the house on Christopher Avenue. You must have thought that too. I thought we’d be a family—all of us, always, mothers to both of them, and it wouldn’t matter. You were like my sister—I thought you would love them both the way I did. I never thought it would turn out so wrong. I never thought you’d end up hating me. I never thought one of our babies would die.”

“Stop saying our babies. They were yours. They were always yours. You took Natalie and you never let me have Teddy. You had to have both of them.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is! I gave you Natalie and you were supposed to give me Teddy. You were supposed to let him be mine. But you never let that happen!” She was so focused on her argument with Helen that she never heard Abe’s footsteps coming down the hall.

“What the hell are you screaming about? It’s a wedding, for Chrissake!” Abe filled up the doorway of the coatroom, blocking the light from the hallway. How much had he heard? How much had he understood? Rose’s legs began to buckle, and she thought she would be sick.