Page 89 of My Big Fat Italian Break-Up

*

As I was thrashing about in bed that evening and missing Julian like crazy, my phone rang. Julian…?

But it wasn’t my husband-to-be. Only Marcy, slurring her words. She must be drunk again, I thought to myself. Good for her. If only I could bury myself in some sort of artificial solace and be oblivious to the world, I’d be home free. Home. Free. Right now, I felt like I was neither.

She was stifling her sobs.

I sat up. ‘Marcy…? What’s wrong?’

‘I was young. He didn’t even have a name,’ she whispered, and I closed my eyes.

The last thing I wanted to hear was another doomed love story she’d had to go through in her difficult life of suitors. But I had no choice.

‘And I gave him up. I gave him up so I could marry your father…’

She heaved a soft sigh and I could hear the shakiness in her voice.

‘I was young,’ she said again. ‘If I was to have any chance of making your father love me, I had to appear to be the virgin he thought I was. So I let him go. Forever.’

‘Who?’

‘My son. He was conceived in England, during my study vacation. And I… Iabandonedhim, like the worst mother in the world. I abandoned him for Edoardo…’ And with that, she really sobbed – a soft but gut-wrenching sob that came from somewhere deep inside her fragile birdlike frame.

Dumbstruck at the revelation, I could do nothing but listen.

She’d abandoned a baby? Where had this come from? And she’d managed to keep this from us all these years? Why? And why tell me now?

‘It’s alright,’ I lied. ‘It’s alright, Marcy.’

‘Oh, Erica, the lies I’ve told!’ she bawled. ‘And with every lie, it got more and more difficult to remember them.’

‘Marcy, calm down, it’s OK,’ I said as she abandoned herself to a long spell of tears. I didn’t know what to say or what to ask, so I simply sat, making shushing, comforting noises.

A baby boy. Who was a man now. A brother to Judy and Vince. And me. Surreal. But I couldn’t tell them. I couldn’t betray her confidence. She’d be the one to have to tell them. Maybe not tomorrow, or the day after that. But the sooner she unloaded the burden from her heart, the better.

‘Why didn’t you tell your parents you were pregnant?’ I asked, surprising even myself. ‘Why didn’t you tell Nonna about your baby?’ I had to know.

When she spoke, her voice seemed to come from the bottom of the ocean. Or maybe my senses were simply dulled.

‘Your grandmother was going through way too much. It would have killed her. Plus, I’ve never been the bravest girl in the world.’

As if we didn’t know.

Marcy cleared her throat. ‘Losing her husband and deciding to move to America were enough tragedy in Nonna’s life. I didn’t want to shame her, as well.’

I listened, eager to know more, suddenly devoid of any of my typical sarcasm. This was Marcy, my stepmother, finallycommunicatingwith me.

‘I gave birth to him in England. A… a n-nun took him for adoption. I’ve never wanted to go back since. And when you went there so many years ago, all I could think of was what I’d done. And if the same thing happened to you, I wanted to know so I could help you and you wouldn’t be like… me…’

‘Oh, Marcy,’ I whispered.

‘I made a terrible mistake, I know, and it’s been eating away at me all these years, conditioning my life, not letting me love those around me.’

That was true, but who was I to judge?

‘And now, somewhere there’s a man who knows his mother abandoned him. How can I continue living with this? I can’t – not another day.’

‘But you have to stop being afraid, Marcy. Life won’t kill you. You should have voiced your fears. You should have told Nonna Silvia about your baby. She would have forgiven you and helped you.’

---