Nine-year-old Giovanni DiTomaso, Johnny to his English classmates, had no words to describe what he was looking at when his mom sent him to find his dad, who was supposed to be doing yardwork at Mrs. Anderson's house, and he found him emerging from her bedroom instead, buttoning up his work shirt.
Dad didn't see him yet because he was looking back into the bedroom and saying something, so Johnny hid back inside the kitchen, feeling like he'd dodged a bullet for some reason, and decided to announce his presence.
"Dad!" he shouted. "Ma needs you!"
When Dad stepped into the kitchen, he was fully buttoned, but his hair was still a little tousled. That seemed wrong. Dad was always well-groomed, his hair brushed and his moustache waxed to sharp points.
"Giovanni," he said sternly, smoothing his hair down. "You don't just walk inside Signora's house. You gotta knock on the front door."
"Sorry, Dad. I looked for you in the garden, but you weren't there."
Dad flinched but recovered quickly. "I help Signora with something."
That had the air of plausibility, since Dad helped Mrs. Anderson with everything around the house, but mostly in the garden. Still, it was so vague that Johnny didn't know if he believed it, and he didn't know if Dad should have been helping Mrs. Anderson with something in her bedroom; Johnny and his little brother Giuseppe, who went by Joe here in Canada, were forbidden from entering Mom and Dad's bedroom without their invitation, so he didn't think Dad should have been in Mrs. Anderson's bedroom without hers. The fact that Dad had said nothing about the bedroom made what he'd said even more suspicious. And if Mrs. Anderson had invited him into her bedroom? That seemed even more wrong, though he couldn't explain why.
He knew, though, that to voice his suspicion would only make Dad angry at him, so he decided not to say anything, sticking only to the purpose of his visit here.
"Ma needs you," he said.
"Okay." Dad looked one last time behind his shoulder and followed Johnny out of the house.
As they walked back down Lawrence Street toward the building that held their apartment on the top floor, Johnny saw the young man and woman who lived in the bottom floor apartment. The woman was a pretty blonde with a tired face, and the man was handsome with brown hair. The two appeared to be having an argument in the driveway of the building, the man holding their small daughter, also blonde, in his arms. The daughter was reaching her arms out to her mother, but the mother appeared to be intent on climbing into the back of a large green car driven by a stone-faced older man with an older woman, who was probably his wife, in the passenger seat.
He could hear more of what they were saying as they got closer. The young man's tone had become more desperate, and the young woman was now crying and shaking her head.
"Jen, please!" the man said. "Please! Rachel needs you! I need you!"
Rachel, who must have been the little girl, was getting more distraught by the second, mystified as to why her mother wasn't taking her, crying out, "Mama! Mama!"
Johnny felt Dad's hand on his shoulder, pressing down, stopping him in his tracks. He looked back at him and said, "What is it, Dad?"
"Aspetta, Giovanni," Dad said in a hushed tone. "Non interrompere."
Wait, don't interrupt them, he'd said. They needed privacy, that was what Dad was saying. Johnny didn't need Dad to tell him that. He had no intention of interrupting them, because he could tell this situation was horrible already, just by watching Jen, the young woman, shake her head again, give Rachel a quick kiss on the cheek while fending off her grasping hands, and climb into the car with one last call over her shoulder, "I'll be in touch, Henry! I promise! I won't let you starve!"
As the car drove away, nearly clipping Johnny and Dad where they stood on the side of the street, as close to the lip of the ditch as they could be, Rachel screamed frantically for her mother, and Henry, her dad, stared after the car in desolation.
Rachel's screaming was horrible, and it brought Mom out on to the balcony overlooking the scene, as well as Nonno and Nonna, who lived with them, and Johnny's little brother Joe, who peered through the bars of the railing, confused. Dad chose that moment to walk with Johnny the rest of the way to the building, where Henry still held his daughter, now sobbing on his shoulder, which was only a little better than the screaming.
"Che cosa e successo?" Mom called to them. Her English was even worse than Dad's. She was just asking what was going on.
Dad didn't answer her directly. He approached Henry and asked, "You okay, buddy?"
Henry blinked and looked at Dad as if he'd never seen him before even though they'd shared a beer once or twice. He shook himself out of his reverie. "Uh... no, not really," he said. "My wife just... left..."
Dad patted Henry's arm and said, "Hey, you no worry, okay? We look after you."
Henry stared at Dad in incomprehension. "Sorry?"
"Henry, what's going on?"
Everyone turned to see Mrs. Anderson approaching them. In fact, other neighbours on the street had come out, probably drawn by the screaming. The Indian family across the street from them emerged, the mother in a colourful wrap-around dress with a round belly (she gave birth to a baby that Fall,) the father in a red turban and carrying a young boy who looked to be Joe's age. The father worked in a sawmill same as Dad, Johnny knew, because Dad had told him he was important in Dad's union, whatever that was. "Mr. McWilliam," the father said tentatively, "Are you all right?"
Mrs. Anderson, immaculately put-together as always even though Dad had been in her room earlier, felt no hesitation, striding right up to Henry McWilliam and stroking Rachel's hair. "Was that your wife in that car?" she asked.
Henry nodded dumbly. "She... went with her parents... back to their house. She... couldn't stay with me, she said. She hasn't been... doing so well lately, and had to leave to get better."
Johnny looked up and saw Mom's horrified expression. "Mamma no leave baby!" she cried in indignation, placing a protective hand on Joe's shoulder.
"If Jennifer wasn't doing well," Mrs. Anderson said, "then perhaps it's for the best if she goes somewhere to recover, just in case her mental state causes her to harm her child."
This concept seemed to horrify Mom even further, for now she drew Joe against her but seemed incapable of even speaking.
Henry looked at Mrs. Anderson with a crestfallen expression. "What will I do?" he asked. "How am I going to do this on my own?"
"You won't," Mrs. Anderson said, still stroking Rachel's hair. "You have friends on this street. James and I will help you with whatever you need. I can look after her while you're at work. I can even teach her piano while she's with me."
"And we'll help you with whatever else you might need," the father of the Indian family said.
Henry looked at all of them, still stunned at this turn of events, too moved to even answer.
Rachel raised her tear streaked face from her father's shoulder and looked at Mrs. Anderson, who smiled and offered her arms for an embrace. The girl, to everyone's surprise, it seemed, fell into it, and Mrs. Anderson squeezed her tight, looking blissfully happy, saying, "Oh, sweet girl," over and over again.
In all the commotion, Johnny had forgotten to mention to his mother that he'd witnessed Dad emerging from Mrs. Anderson's room, and very soon after that he forgot about it altogether, as everyone's attention fell upon the newly single father and his poor daughter, and the kindly older woman on the street who'd quickly become known as "Saint Martha" for taking the girl under her wing.
The image of his father leaving Saint Martha's room would only emerge from his subconscious, like a long-buried ship returning to the surface of the ocean, when he read a letter not meant for his eyes more than forty years later, and only then would he understand its whole horrible meaning.
Thanks for reading this far! For readers who know the sad events of Rachel's early days, I thought it would be fun to show it through Johnny's point of view as a young boy confused by something he saw in Mrs. Anderson's house. If you liked what you read so far, hit "Vote" to send this title up the ranks. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!
Now, let's get back to Rachel at the restaurant, and three surprises waiting for her, by clicking on "Continue reading."