Page 74 of The Sisters
‘I know, but I am now,’ said Violetta angrily.
‘Listen, I don’t want a quick fuck, Violetta. I don’t want you transferring your gratitude to me though sex. If you want to be with me then be with me but not like this,’ he said, not even believing he was saying it.
‘Fine then,’ she said, and jumped off the bench.
Jeff walked over to her and just as he was about to speak, his beeper went off. ‘Excuse me.’ He pulled out his phone and walked into the lounge.
Saved by the bell, thought Violetta, as she tried to ignore the throbbing between her thighs.
Jeff walked into the kitchen. ‘Well, if there wasn’t enough drama today, I have more,’ he said, gathering his keys and coming towards her.
‘What?’ asked Violetta, panicked.
‘Your mom has woken up.’
21
Birdie, New York – December 1995
She touched the bruise on her cheek tenderly. Arnica, someone had told her, would bring out the bruising faster and make it heal quickly. She struggled to open the bathroom cabinet and found the vial of the liquid. Both arms hurt from where Leon had grabbed her and she knew there would be bruises there also. Usually he stayed away from hitting her face, which people would notice, but today he was angrier than usual.
‘Mom, are you OK?’ asked Grace from outside the bathroom door. Grace was the only triplet home when she and Leon had fought. Violetta was at a friend’s house for the weekend and Carlotta was out on her horse, as usual.
‘I’m fine, darling,’ said Birdie brightly.
Grace waited, unsure what to say, as Birdie applied a face mask to her skin. She winced as she rubbed it into her face. Opening the door, she pulled Grace into her arms. ‘Just a silly fight, mommies and daddies do that sometimes. Now, how about a facial? Would you like that?’
Grace nodded, not because she wanted that white cream on her face but because it would make her mother happy, and that was what she wanted more than anything.
As Birdie rubbed the cream into Grace’s ten-year-old skin that was like satin, she saw the resemblance between Grace and her father. She wondered if anyone else saw it as she did.
‘You are so beautiful,’ she said to Grace truthfully.
Grace smiled at her mother, again to make her happy. She didn’t care about beauty; she wanted to be strong and smart like her sisters. Then she could stop her father yelling and hurting her mother.
After Birdie had washed her daughter’s face and her own, she felt the bruise smarting. It would be visible soon under the red mark on her cheek. Hustling Grace from the bathroom, she applied the arnica and thought about her options. As long as her father was alive, then Leon would always have a hold over her. And she knew it; he reminded her of it whenever she looked like she was about to take control of her life. Like that morning, when she insisted she come to Pajaro with him. She was sick of being at home. She had started the company and then Leon had taken over. She wanted to be more than just a mother of her beloved girls. They were ten now, at school. Birdie wanted a life also. Leon, however, had other ideas and her idea of coming in one day a week had been met first with anger and then with a backhand across the face when she pushed it further.
It had been like this between them for years and sometimes, when the bruises were bad enough, she took photos or went to the local police station. Once she even started to press charges but Leon had presented her with photos of her father lying on a bed somewhere, posing in leather. His erection being licked by a young man. Birdie dropped the charges and she knew she would have to drop her idea of working at her beloved Pajaro again.
She had no close friends to confide in, Leon made sure of that, only social acquaintances that she met through charity events. She had met a lovely woman from Chicago, Frances Thurlow; they had worked on the Chicago and New York Neonatal Fund. But Chicago was so far away and Leon was so close. Birdie had eventually pushed away the friendship, citing her busyness with her daughters as her excuse, and so the phone calls with Frances stopped. Dina hadn’t spoken to her since her marriage to Leon and Spencer… well, Spencer was so far away now, she wondered if he ever existed in the first place. That was until she saw her daughters.
She had tried to write to Spencer but never knew what to say, how to explain her choice. She knew she had broken his heart; she felt it as deeply as her own wounded soul. Spencer had never married, her mother had told her. Leon claimed it was because he was gay like her father, but Birdie knew no gay man could have made love to her the way Spencer had.
Birdie finished tending to her wounds and walked down the immense staircase to where Grace was carefully leafing through one of her history books, the Ming dynasty her current fascination. Grace had Birdie’s father’s taste in fine art, thought Birdie, as she watched her youngest daughter treat the book as though it was an ancient text. She was so different to her sisters, fragile and scared. Birdie hoped she could become strong one day, that life would not treat her like it had her mother.
A woman deserved choices and Birdie wondered if she would ever have a choice to make again in her lifetime.
And rashly she made her first choice in a long time. Picking up the phone, she dialled a number that was burned into her memory.
‘Spencer, it’s Birdie.’
22
‘Time to wake up properly, Mrs de Santoval.’
Jeff watched as she stirred a little. He was anxious, unsure of what Birdie’s condition would be after so long in a coma. Slowly Birdie opened her eyes and tried to focus.
‘Spencer?’ she asked.
