Part One: Beginnings
Chapter One: Deborah, March, 1965
Her thirteenth birthday fell on a school night, which gave Deborah Davidson the excuse of opting out of having a party. As extroverted as she pretended to be, she did not actually have a group of friends, as her sharp and jarring opinions made sure of that. So instead, it was just her, her mother, and her little sister, Donna, sitting around the formica table, the only thing distinguishing this from any other normal school evening being the room being illuminated by the cake Gerdie had spent all day baking, and the Nat King Cole playing faintly in the background. Her father wasn’t home yet but at 13, Deborah had already begun to accept that.
“Happy birthday, Deb!” her mother said, as if flustered. “Goodness… thirteen… you’re almost a young lady now. Soon, we might have to have… a little talk.”
Deborah looked down at the half-eaten mashed potatoes on her plate in order to conceal the rolling of her eyes. She did have one good friend in her class—Nancy Cross—with whom she had, months ago, discovered her panties stained with red. Since then, the two of them had poured over library books—on menstruation, women’s health, and even a bit—on sex. The news of the particulars of these events did not come as a huge shock to her. Though not a scholar like her sister, she always maintained a cynical outlook over the smokescreens her parents employed to divert and misinterpret life’s inner workings. The reason she kept quiet was not out of embarrassment or shame, but because she figured Gerdie might die from the shock of her knowing.
Donna, however, was not privy to such thoughts or if she was, her natural inquisitiveness took over. “What talk?” she asked plainly, her voice scratching through the tension like a kitchen knife. “It would not be that talk, would it?”
Gerdie flushed red and began gathering her daughters’ dinner plates. “Never you mind,” was all that she said. “Such talk is not suitable for young ears.”
Donna glowered briefly, and slumped in her chair. She was only two years younger than her sister and doubtless felt decades older, as she measured everything by school marks.
“Don’t worry, squirt,” Deborah dared whisper once their mother had left the room. “It is a science subject, after all. The way you pour over those science books, you will be able to find out all about it on your own.”
Donna mimicked her sister by rolling her eyes, and for once was not placated by the reference to her favorite subject. Deborah grinned, deciding to push the envelope a little more, when suddenly, the front door rattled down the hallway before opening. “I’m home!” their father’s booming voice then rang out.
Gerdie stepped out of the kitchen, holding desert plates in her arms. “Jack?” she called out unnecessarily. “Is that you?”
“Well, who else would it be?” Jack Davidson chuckled quickly as if amused with himself while sweeping into the room. Stopping first to switch the record player over to Frank Sinatra, he then crossed to give his wife a peck on the cheek. “Christ, I am starving. What is to eat?”
“Honey?” Gerdie said, carefully placing the dishes on the table. “Do you—not remember? It is Deborah’s birthday today.”
Jack paused momentarily in shrugging his coat off his back and this time, Deborah did not conceal the rolling of her eyes. “That’s right,” he said, as if selling something on the television. “Happy birthday, Deb.” He reached over to tussle her hair as Gerdie carried his coat to the closet. Deborah ducked, scowling.
Jack sat down, unperturbed. “So, I see that we are on to desert already?”
Gerdie came back, twisting her hands awkwardly in front of her. “I am sorry that we did not wait. I did not desire for the meatloaf to go cold.”
“No, it is alright,” Jack said, sighing as he kicked his shoes off under the table. “It was a long day at work is all.”
“Oh, I am sorry!” Gerdie exclaimed, inching forward to dare drop her hand on his shoulder. When he looked up at her, she blushed, averting her gaze and organizing the dishes. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Deborah cleared her throat, the ire rising.
“I think Deborah’s trying to say she would like to eat her cake now,” Donna said, deciding, apparently, to get back at her sister for her earlier comments. Deborah glared at her, jutting her foot slightly to hit her sister under the table. “OW!”
“That’s enough, Deborah,” Jack said severely. “You are not in grammar school anymore.”
“Sorry,” Deborah spat, presumably at Donna, but she was really looking at her father. She couldn’t really recall a time in her life when she was not mad at him. From the moment of her earliest memories, Jack Davidson assumed the role of the sun, and she despised being in his orbit. Like a decadent god, he was blind to his own privilege, as exemplified by the way Gerdie so thoughtlessly looked after him and cleaned his messes without receiving so much as a thank you. She was doing so right now, stepping in, mild and meek, between her husband and daughter’s glaring contest.
“Now, now,” she spoke softly. “Can’t we all just sit down to a nice family desert?”
Deborah looked down, flushing for some indeterminable reason as everyone else strove to breathe properly again.
They sang happy birthday to her, soft and off key, and her mother told her to make a wish. She sighed, looking at the glowing candles and thinking the custom ridiculous, something out of a child’s fairy tale. They certainly did not believe in magic, her family—Gerdie having barely escaped the Holocaust, and what else could magic be illuminated by, other than the belief in some lofty religion? The Davidsons did not even go to Temple not even those two holidays—the near year and the day of atonement, which she knew that the other Jewish kids took off school for, but other than wishing she could take a couple of extra days off of school, Deborah was glad not to be affiliated with such tripe. She figured that she believed in the stuffy pews and dry, dusty sermons only slightly more than she would dare to believe in the Judeo Christian vengeful and patriarchal god. It was a suburban thing—these words and songs and rituals, which rotted your brain and kept them all from the truth—the truth that they, as happy middle class consumers, were somehow oppressed by their jobs and their vast, sunlit homes and unyielding gender roles. Deborah Davidson closed her eyes and on this day her mother called “almost” the beginning of becoming a “young lady,” and called for the end of this oppression—this Leave It To Beaver parody of perpetual hamster wheels and broken promises. Her parents clapped, as if she had accomplished some great feat by blowing out the candles, and Donna stared at her curiously, always inquisitive, and always aware.
That night, Deborah spoke to her sister in the darkness of their bedroom. “He is having an affair,” she said, about their father. “He is trading our mother in for a younger model. This is what men do; trust me, because I do know.”
Donna scoffed, turning away from her sister, but what anger she hoped to hide from concealing her expression was dashed the moment she spoke, and hot, angry words forced themselves out of her mouth. “You do not know what you are talking about,” she hissed angrily. “You think, complete with your bad attitude, that you are so wise, but instead, you just live to stir up trouble, Deborah. If they divorce at all, I know that it will be your fault.”
Deborah said nothing, as she accepted this blow. It was amazing to her that little eleven year old Donna could rattle off all the properties of the noble gasses, but could not understand the complexities of human relations. Was it her duty, as the elder sister, to make sure Donna knew about the bitter and male inflicted truths of the world, or was it instead her duty to protect her, or to lie to her? Was there a difference? Or was the greatest protection she could give the unaltered and gristly truth?
Their small clock ticked above their heads, and distantly, Deborah could hear her parents murmuring in the den. They were watching the news, hidden and private from their daughters, though Deborah herself had snuck out to listen in the hall several a time. She smiled to herself, an idea forming. She was always good at collecting data, and at playing the role of a spy.
Across the room from her, the sheets rustled as Donna twisted in bed. Deborah bit her lip as she came to a decision about this predicament.
“Hopefully, you will never have to understand,” she said cryptically. And in her head, she made the first of her preliminary plans in order to catch her G-d forsaken father in the horrible act.
