Даниэла Стил - Neighbors

Her own father had been a drunk and died when she was three years old. She didn’t remember him. He had died driving home from work drunk in a snowstorm, and left her mother a widow with five children. She didn’t know if he had ever beaten her, but her mother never said much about him. She had supported them all by being a domestic, as Tyla’s sisters did. It was odd how history repeated itself. But she didn’t want her history to repeat itself for Will and Daphne. Tyla had learned to live with terror, for their sakes.

She lay awake for a long time that night, staying as far away from Andrew as she could in the bed. He had to be back at the hospital again at six the next morning. She was glad she wouldn’t have to see him when she woke up. And hopefully, one day, she’d never have to see him again at all.

Chapter 5

Meredith got up early the next morning, and was surprised when she saw Daphne sitting in the hall again. This time, she was wearing a pink nightgown, and was holding all three of her dolls in her arms.

“You’re up early again,” Meredith said with a smile. Daphne nodded and didn’t say anything. She didn’t look as happy as she had the day before. “Are you hungry?”

“A little. Can I have cereal?”

“No pancakes?” She shook her head. “Do you want to get slippers?”

“I don’t want to wake Mommy. Daddy went to work. Mom and Will are still asleep.” Meredith took her hand and they walked downstairs to the kitchen. No one was up yet, and it was peaceful, as Meredith got out a bowl and filled it with cereal, and then poured milk into it. She folded a napkin, put a spoon next to it, and Daphne ate the cereal, as Meredith made herself a cup of coffee.

“My mom fell down and got a bloody nose last night,” Daphne said out of the blue, and Meredith looked at her, wondering what part of it was true.

“How did she fall down?” Meredith asked, trying to sound casual. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t believe the story, not all of it.

“She fell over Will’s bed and bumped her nose.” Daphne said it as though she didn’t believe it either, and expected Meredith to question her about it. She wasn’t sure if she should, or what the right protocol was if a child was seeing her mother abused.

“That must have hurt.” Daphne nodded, her little face serious. She seemed so small in her nightgown.

“She falls down a lot,” Daphne added, her eyes never leaving Meredith’s, and then when Meredith least expected it, Daphne’s voice dropped down to the merest whisper. “Sometimes he hits her.” She looked down into the bowl then, and neither of them said another word for a minute. It confirmed what Meredith had been thinking and was afraid of.

“I’m very sorry to hear it,” Meredith whispered back. “Does he ever hit you?”

She shook her head. “He shouts at us, he doesn’t hit us. He only hits Mommy.” Meredith couldn’t imagine what that must feel like to a child, knowing that their father hurt their mother, and not being able to stop it. How terrifying it must be for them. Meredith wasn’t sure what to do about it, but she knew she had to do something. She couldn’t call Child Protective Services because he wasn’t hitting his children, “only” his wife. Meredith went to sit next to her, and pulled Daphne onto her lap and just held her, her arms around her, holding her tight. She could feel Daphne relax in her arms, and hadn’t realized how tense she was.

“If you’re a good witch, can you fix it?” Daphne asked her, and it brought tears to Meredith’s eyes.

“I’m not sure I’m that kind of witch. But I can try.”

“Will you put a spell on him?” Daphne liked the idea.

“I have to think about it.” Daphne nodded and got back in her own chair, and then looked seriously at Meredith again.

“Why do you only have a girl, and you don’t have a boy too?” Daphne asked her, and Meredith felt as though she had been hit in the solar plexus. “Like me and Will,” she explained. Meredith decided to tell her the truth.

“I had a boy too, but he’s with the angels.” Daphne’s eyes widened and she looked at Meredith.

“Did he get sick? My friend Stephanie’s grandma is with the angels now. She got cancer.”

“No, he had an accident.”

“That’s very sad,” Daphne said solemnly.

“Yes, it was very sad. His name was Justin. And my daughter’s name is Kendall. And I have a granddaughter named Julia.” As she said it, she realized that Kendall was almost the same age as Daphne’s mother. Kendall was forty, and Tyla was thirty-eight. It was odd how women the same age as her daughter kept coming into her life. Like Debbie too.

They sat quietly together for a while, thinking about their confidences to each other, and then Will and Tyla walked in. Will looked very pale, and Tyla was exhausted. She had on makeup, and if you looked closely, you could see that her nose was swollen, but only slightly. Her son looked worse than she did. Tyla went to make him some tea, and said that he had a stomachache.

“He gets really bad stomachaches sometimes.” Meredith could guess why, but didn’t say anything, and Daphne shot her a glance, which Meredith pretended not to notice.

“Should he stay in bed?” Meredith asked solicitously.

“No, I think he’ll be okay in a while.”

Tyla made him a piece of toast, and Peter and Arthur came in after that. Arthur promised them another piano lesson. When Ava and Joel came to breakfast, the three women agreed to go to the shelter again. All three of them had loved it, but Meredith looked questioningly at Tyla.

“Are you sure you want to go? I got the feeling Andrew wasn’t too pleased about it.” Tyla looked her straight in the eye, and there was something determined in her face.

“I’m going. They need us there,” Tyla said firmly.

“Yes, they do,” Meredith agreed.

“I think it’s wonderful,” Arthur commented. Peter was going back to volunteer at the OES, and Joel said he was going back downtown. They were still shoveling broken glass, computers, and parts of the ceiling out of his office. He didn’t comment about Ava going to the shelter.

“You can come with me if you want,” Joel offered Ava, but she shook her head and said she was going back to the shelter in the Marina, they needed her more, and he didn’t argue with her, but didn’t look happy about it.

The others all went upstairs after they’d eaten, and Arthur lingered for a few minutes. “I hardly know you, but I’m proud of you,” he said to Meredith. “I know you’ve been hiding behind your walls for a long time, but maybe this is what you needed. The world needs you.”

“I needed some time to myself for a while, but I think I stayed that way for too long. My husband left me for someone else, and I didn’t expect it. And my son died a few months later. It was all too much to deal with at once, so I folded the show, gave up my career, and I’ve been hiding for a long time. Too long.” She realized that now her life was suddenly full of people she barely knew, but who needed her. Kendall had shut her out for so long that she had forgotten what it felt like to be wanted.

“It’s a lonely life, being alone like that,” Arthur said gently. He felt able to say it to her because of his age, if nothing else, and he had grown fond of her in a few days. He could tell that she was a kind, generous, honorable woman, just from the fact that they were all staying with her, and she was taking good care of them.

“I wasn’t alone. I had Jack and Debbie here with me,” she explained to him and he shook his head.

“I have my housekeeper, Frieda, and Peter. That’s not the same thing. They work for me, and that gets complicated. You need meaning and purpose in your life, and friends. You gave up a career that must have been rewarding and gave millions of people enormous pleasure. I’m much older than you are, and I had a wonderful marriage. I have those memories to keep me warm, and I don’t mind being alone now, as long as I still have my work. But you’re too young to do that.”