60. Daughter
(Rosa's Story, Part 1 of 2)
"I should warn you," Rosa said, "it's a rather lengthy tale."
"That's all right," Bonnie assured her. "I can afford to be a few minutes late for work this morning. My boss is on vacation."
"So he is! Let me ask you, then: do you know the Bible verse about the sins of the father being visited on the son?"
"To the third and fourth generations, yes. What of it?"
"I've thought of it a great deal since my talk with Valeria the other day. It was uncanny, really, what she told me about herself. Her family background, how she came to be a wife and mother so young — she might have been recounting my own past to me. I left Rudolph because I thought he stood a better chance of happiness without me in the picture, and yet, he wound up with a failed marriage and a son he may have to raise on his own, just as Karl did. It's as though history's repeating itself, our generation to theirs."
"Forgive me, Rosa," Bonnie interrupted, "but I don't understand how you happened to be talking to Val in the first place. I assume you initiated contact, but why? I can't imagine her arrest made the news in France."
"No, you are quite right, chérie. Did I perhaps mention I had lunch with Valeria when I was last in D. C.?"
"You didn't, no, but Val did."
"Ah! Then, you know about my little ruse, and, no doubt, the arrangement we concluded for the summer. She held her end of the bargain up very nicely, so much so, indeed, that I was phoning to announce the foundation's decision to extend its financial support through the school year, but it was obvious from the moment she picked up that something was very wrong. She was reluctant to confide in me, of course, but I managed at length to convince her I wanted only to help, and with that, you might say, the flood gates opened. She was almost pathetically grateful for my interest, poor girl. Evidently there are few sympathetic ears to be met with among her acquaintance."
Bonnie was reminded of her own lunch with Val, and her less-than-generous response to Val's bid to share more about herself. Bonnie might've been a friend to her, but instead Val had had to wait to find one in Rosa.
"We all vow to learn from our parents' mistakes," Rosa was saying, "and yet it's so often the case that, despite our best efforts not to follow in their footsteps, we find ourselves walking a very similar path. Growing up, I was resolved not to ruin my life by getting pregnant as a teen, as my mother did. She was my grandparents' 'surprise' baby, born when her brothers were already fifteen and seventeen. My uncles both joined the Army right out of high school, so, for all intents and purposes, she was raised an only child. My grandparents had taken great pains to bring their sons up to be right-minded, respectable men, but when it came to their daughter — perhaps because, being older, they were more relaxed, or because they wanted to enjoy their youngest — they were far less strict, indulging her as they never had their sons, and disciplining her lightly, if at all, when she misbehaved. My mother grew accustomed to having her way in all things, and, by the time my grandparents faced up to the fact that they were spoiling her rotten, the damage was done. She'd developed a taste for having the upper hand, and wasn't about to surrender it.
"Her bratty behavior didn't win her any friends at school. She was always in and out of trouble: fighting on the playground, sassing her teachers, blowing off assignments, and, later, in high school, getting mixed up with a 'bad crowd.' I'm sure it didn't come as a shock to anyone that she was careless about contraception, and got pregnant her senior year by a classmate who, in her estimation, was a perfectly adequate sex partner but not 'husband material.' Other girls in her situation might've had a quiet abortion, but being pregnant suited my mother very well. It spared her the embarrassment of having to admit she had no plans or prospects for life after graduation, and gave her, as well, a convenient excuse for all her future failures. 'If it wasn't for raising you,' she told me more than once, 'I could've accomplished great things.'
"It turns out she had this very odd notion that once she popped me out, she could hand me over to her parents, and resume coming and going as she pleased. My grandparents, though, had finally had enough, and laid down the law: she could either be a mother to me, or sign over her parental rights to them, and go. If she wanted to continue living under their roof and receiving their financial support, she had to contribute to our maintenance, and, except when out working, devote herself to my care. She was outraged at these 'unreasonable' demands, but they, for once, refused to bend, and, as she had no one else to take her in and no way to stand on her own two feet, she bowed with bad grace to their conditions.
"I'd like to say this last ditch effort at tough love had its desired effect, that, by holding down a job and shouldering a share of her responsibilities at home, my mother gradually gained confidence in herself, and became a responsible, independent adult, but that ending is for fairytales. My mother, instead, deeply resented having to slave at a menial job for minimum wage when, in her view, her parents could easily afford the trifling expenses occasioned by adding a grandchild to the household. She raged at being expected to pay her own phone and credit card bills out of what remained of her meager wages, and was apoplectic that her clothing allowance was cut off, and the money redirected to buying me adorable outfits and educational toys.
"Naturally, she resented me, too. I was the evil stepsister to her mistreated Cinderella. She was scarcely ever able to go out socially, tied down as she was by the drudgery of having to feed me, change my disgusting diapers, and deal with my constant crying. It didn't help matters that I showed a marked preference for my grandmother's more experienced handling, reaching out to her for comfort, and generally transforming from squalling demon to rosy-cheeked angel whenever she took charge of me. The rewards my mother had been led to expect would reconcile her to my onerous demands eluded her. She soured on motherhood very quickly, and forever.
"This uneasy state of affairs lasted through my infancy and early childhood. There were frequent ugly scenes and violent arguments, but, since my mother couldn't — or wouldn't — do without her parents' support, she always backed down in the end. She hated being under their thumb, but, if there was one thing she'd learned from her string of dead-end jobs, it was that having a meal ticket was infinitely preferable to earning her own living. She resolved early on to tolerate her parents only as long as it took her to find someone else to provide for her, and, though it took her a full five years, she finally found her man.
"Gary was the assistant manager at the fulfillment center where she worked, a thoroughly decent man she somehow finagled into marrying her. It was a whirlwind courtship, conducted entirely in secret, so that the first thing my grandparents knew about it, she already had a ring on her finger. They were completely blindsided, which was the point of the elopement, after all. My mother wanted to present her marriage as a fait accompli, a get-out-of-jail-free card she could flaunt in their faces. It was not enough for her, though, simply to break their hold on her; they had to be made to pay for the 'humiliations' they'd made her suffer, and so she stripped them of what they cherished most in the world: me. My grandparents had no legal recourse; she was my mother, they couldn't stop her from taking me, though it broke their hearts and mine. After we moved in with Gary, I wasn't allowed to see them, or talk to them without her express permission, which she rarely gave. They made repeated overtures of peace for my sake, but my mother rejected them out of hand. There was to be no forgiveness, ever.
"As for the marriage, it fell apart after only two years. They argued over money, of course: he complained that she spent too much, she countered that he earned too little. As their debt mounted to alarming proportions, my stepfather insisted she either learn to economize, or find part-time work to supplement his income, proposals that greatly offended my mother's sense of what she was due. She turned on him, blaming their predicament on his lack of enterprise and ambition. Where were the promotions, the rapid rise up the corporate ladder? If she was at fault, it was in having had more faith in him than he deserved. She recognized her error, and filed for divorce. There was not much left in the way of assets after the debt was settled, but Gary was magnanimous: he agreed to pay a modest sum in alimony until she remarried. That gesture came back to haunt him, though, as my mother'd had enough of marriage to last a lifetime. He was her first husband, and her last.
"There were other men over the years but, like Gary, they inevitably 'failed' her somehow, and she moved on in search of greener pastures. Between boyfriends, my mother's mood tended to be dark, and her temper uncertain. I tried, over those months, to be a model daughter, ever cheerful and supportive. I laid all my little triumphs at her feet — my straight-A report cards, my good-conduct awards, the prizes I won for my art projects — but she took no pleasure in my achievements, and never had a word of praise or congratulations for me. At home, although I did all the chores she set me, and more, I was frequently pronounced more trouble than I was worth, and told off as stupid, bumbling and impossible. I learned, painfully, to walk on eggshells around her, and to take care of myself as best I could. It was always a relief when she found her next someone, and not only because her spirits and our material lot improved. In the honeymoon phase of a new relationship, she made an effort to show herself in the most positive light, and that meant playing the part of attentive, loving mother to the hilt. It was pure theater, but, while the performance lasted, she treated me well, and I breathed more easily for a time.
"It wasn't until I was fourteen that I gave up all hope that Maud, as she preferred by then to be called, would be a real mother to me. Our last four years together, we dispensed with any pretense of being family, and lived like roommates, each of us going her own way with minimal involvement from the other. As I was of legal working age, if barely, my mother didn't scruple to propose I find a job, and pay her something toward my food and lodging, 'as was only fair.' I didn't protest; truthfully, I was just as glad to have somewhere else to be after school and on weekends. And then, I had the great good fortune to be hired on as general kitchen help at a nearby mom-and-pop restaurant, a wonderful place that, over time, came to feel more like home to me than the apartment I shared with Maud. I spent my first two years there happily behind the scenes doing food prep and clean-up, and then, when I turned sixteen, a waitressing job opened up, and I was offered the chance to train. I accepted, and never looked back.
"It was at the restaurant that I met Karl, the summer before my senior year. He worked at an industrial design firm in the area, and came in for lunch once or twice a week with three or four colleagues."
Bonnie pictured a somewhat younger, less brooding version of Bear in a suit and tie. "Was it love at first sight?"
Rosa laughed lightly. "Hardly, my dear. He was handsome enough, but didn't stand out at all among his rowdier, more outgoing friends. No, he was a long time wooing me, poor man. Nearly a year."