Page 1 of Everything We Thought Was True
OVERTURE
LENA – NEW ROCHELLE, NY
1983
When my family sat down for dinner, the last thing I expected was my typically unruffled Italian American mom to hurl a plate of spaghetti and peas against the wall. Even worse—she was aiming for my father.
To officially kick off summer and celebrate the end of school, Mom had made one of our favorite dishes,pasta e piselli—spaghetti with peas in red gravy. She spent hours making it from scratch, holed up in the cramped kitchen, which grew hot as an inferno on this sticky summer night. Every time my older brother, Anthony, still whining at fifteen, asked when dinner was, she’d say, “When your goddamn father gets home,” and then under her breath, “Whenever that will be.”
My father’s absence from the dinner table had become the norm lately—he was often out late after work—yet my mother still held out hope for his arrival that night. He graced us with his presence a half hour later, waltzing in and washing up, while my mom motioned for us to sit down at the dining room table of the duplex my family rented in a New York City suburb. Mom served my father’s spaghetti and peas with more force than necessary, hitting the serving spoon against the side of the bowl with a clank that made me jump in my seat.
Dad spread his napkin on his lap as though nothing was amiss. “Sorry I’m late. I had to swing by the boatyard after work and check on something.”
Mom raised her eyebrows and didn’t make eye contact with him. “I don’t remember you telling me you had to stop by the boatyard. Are you sure that’s where you were?”
“Of course. I told you. Where else would I be?”
Mom put down the serving spoon and looked up at him. “Well, I don’t know, Frank. I hardly ever know where you are these days, do I?”
I looked from my mother to my father, trying to make sense of what was happening. Anthony was oblivious, heartily eating, already on his second helping. I’d heard my parents fight many times, but this time felt different. Mom’s jaw was set, and steely resolve shone in her eyes. Electricity buzzed around the table, so strong I could almost hear it. My parents’ roles were reversed, with my mother appearing to have the upper hand and my father looking like a petulant teenager who’d been caught coming home past curfew.
I had a sinking feeling her change in attitude had something to do with what I’d said to her about Dad a few nights before at McDonald’s. I’d told her that I knew his secret, though I hadn’t understood the full weight of it. One Saturday afternoon four summers earlier, on my dad’s boat, I’d caught my dad and his friend Henry in the midst of an intimate moment. Henry’s hand was on my father’s arm, and my father had his head bent toward his friend, a satisfied smile on his face, a look of tenderness on Henry’s. My mother looked at my father that way, but I’d never seen someone else with that exact look on their face directed at my father. Burned into my brain was the image of my father and this man huddled close together in the captain’s seat of the boat, a tableau framed by the bright-blue sky and sea. And I’d come to a conclusion: my dad and Henry were more than friends.
“I said I was at the boatyard. That’s it.”
“That’s it? No, Frank, I don’t think that’s it. There’s a lot more going on thanthat’s it, and you know it. And so do I.”
“Oh, come on, Teresa. Stop with the theatrics.”
She snatched her plate of spaghetti and peas and hurled it in my father’s direction. He ducked just in time. The plate flew past him and crashed against the dining room wall. Shards of china skidded across the gold linoleum floor. Red streaks dripped down the wall onto the sideboard that held the stereo system with an eight-track tape of Barry Manilow sticking out. My father stood up, wide-eyed, his hands tightly grasping the sides of the table. His face and knuckles turned white, like they’d been drained of color.
Mom’s face was red, and her voice was quivering. “These are your theatrics, Frank! You created them.”
I held my breath.What is she going to do? And, oh my God, what is she going to say? Will she tell him what I know?I realized my family was precarious, teetering on a cliff, about to fall over.
“No, Frank, I’m not hysterical or a drama queen or whatever else you’ve accused me of in the past to avoid the real subject—the one we never talk about but is always there. You think it’s hidden. Well, it’s not.” She glanced over at me then back at my father. It seemed once the words poured out, Mom couldn’t dam the rest. “Your own daughter knows what’s going on—a thirteen-year-old! So don’t tell me to stop with the theatrics. If anyone needs to stop with the theatrics, it’s you.”
She told him.I couldn’t believe this was happening.
Dad looked over at me questioningly. I couldn’t meet his eyes. I turned away and looked at Anthony, who by this time had stopped eating and was watching the scene unfold with wide-open eyes, holding his forgotten fork in midair. The two of us were like a Greek chorus—there to witness the tragedy and comment on it but notcontrol it. And I knew the truth. Anthony was clueless. I envied him at that moment. I didn’t want to be in the know.
“Teresa, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but this is not the time. That’s enough.” Dad looked around wildly, like he was trying to find an escape route. But he stayed glued to his spot. His face registered an expression unfamiliar to me, and I realized with horror that it was fear.
The same refrain repeated over and over in my head like a needle stuck on a scratch on one of my worn-out records.Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.
“Yes, I agree. It’s enough! I’m tired of you going out and doing what you want while I cover for you.” She glanced at me again. “While we all cover for you. We’ve been dancing around this secret long enough, Frank. I’m not having any more of it. I’m done.”
Mom shot to her feet and this time threw the entire serving bowl across the table. It shattered against the wall. The sound was deafening, like something had cracked that could never be repaired. The spaghetti trailed down like an army of caterpillars, inching slowly toward the floor and mixing with the red gravy. The wall looked as if millions of tiny bugs had been squashed all over it, leaving their blood behind like evidence of a crime. The crime, in this case, was the unraveling of my parents’ marriage and the breaking apart of our family.
“Mom!” I pleaded.
She stared at my father, her eyes boring into him, her glare seething. “Get out of this house.”
Anthony jumped to his feet, scraping his chair against the floor. “Mom, no. What do you mean, get out?”
“I mean, I want your father to leave. Right now.”
My father flinched but remained immobile. “Teresa, calm down. No one is going anywhere.”
