A Complicated Marriage (46 page)

We did our best. I took a room on the second floor as my workspace; Russ opted for a cramped basement room as a studio. For the rest, it even defied Russ, an inspired nester. But the coup de grace soon struck. We were surrounded by gated properties—even we had a flimsy excuse for one—that were patrolled by guard dogs. Night and day the six Dobermans barked at anything that moved, and when the world fell quiet, they howled at the moon. We tried all the help lines, we taped, we photographed, we tried city mediation. To no avail. Sleeplessness, stress—Russ was ready to resort to poison. The problem eventually escalated into an ultimate neighbor nightmare. A vengeful dog owner lit a fire near our bedroom window, awakening us to smoke, fear, and fury. We had eked out almost two years there; it was time to flee.

But first I had a personal decision to sort out: I had thought for some time that Clem and I should remarry. Not a pressing thought, it was just there. Maybe it was the next step in my need to tidy up my life that had started with the sale of the Norwich house and then the co-op. Maybe it was sharing the experience of Al Velake's death and then seeing Clem's first sign of vulnerability after he had a hernia operation in 1988. Clem, who was so proud of his constitution, who had never even had a doctor, had been shaken by that. Maybe it was simply that I needed to feel closer
to him. Being single had clearly proven to be just what Clem had termed it, one of Jenny's “gestures.” Though both of our lives had moved on, our connection had not changed.

I discussed these thoughts with Russ, and, just as he had always understood and accepted the rather irregular family he had become a part of, he understood and accepted this. On my next visit to 275, I suggested the idea to Clem. Given that he had never considered us “divorced”—indeed, had never stopped introducing me as “my wife, Jenny”—he agreed, stipulating only that there be no fuss or bother. And so in June of 1989, accompanied by Sarah and her longtime boyfriend, Nabil, we were remarried at city hall. Afterward, we headed to the River Club for a lobster dinner. Next to all things deli and Chinese, Clem loved lobster. Like our divorce, as simple as could be.

That fall, as we put the Mulholland house on the market, I found myself hesitating for the first time about where I belonged. Maybe it was time to return to New York. Was that what my urge to remarry was about, a paving of the way? But what about Russ, what about my theater life? As if to lighten up and remind myself of all that was fun and quirky about L.A., I compiled an “only in L.A.” list. Where else would I have had my aura cleansed (twice), have been counseled by a psychic nutritionist in the art of dangling a crystal over an avocado in the supermarket to test its toxicity to my energy flow, have traveled afar to attend clandestine channeling sessions, have consulted a mantric healer, have been advised by a psychic astrologist, have had my chakras cleared, have been Rolfed, have been treated regularly by acupuncturists and herbalists, and have been massaged every way to Sunday and back? I should mention that my more esoteric excursions were made in the company of a friend who was researching a book on the subject. The only thing I sidestepped was colonics, although I fasted occasionally and drank wheatgrass to the edge of nausea. And where else could Russ and I have so effortlessly maintained a macrobiotic regime for five years? How could I leave such an abundant confluence of health and lunacy? On a more serious note, how could I leave my loving partner, and did I have faith that my career and well-being would survive the transplant to New York?

Once again, Russ and I had started looking at houses. We saw only
one place we liked, a small cottage on a grassy corner of Pacific Street in Santa Monica. Four blocks above the beach, it was as far as one could get from gates and mansions and Dobermans and, wouldn't you know, it had a white picket fence. Still, I hesitated.

But there was a time pressure. It was imperative that I come to a decision about whether to move back to New York and live at 275 with Clem. To delay further would have been to mislead Russ. Russ and I were in transition, and I needed to make myself clear to him about the options I was weighing. That night I talked to him, and it turned out I had worried needlessly about his reaction. Unlike me, as a communicator, Russ never equivocated. Whether about feelings or what he thought of my new shoes, he told it like it was. That was the Eagle Scout in him. Thanks to him, we talked easily about the pros and cons, and my dilemma melted away. Our openness had a revitalizing effect on our relationship. Then, rather quickly, the Mulholland house sold, to someone who had the sensible plan of tearing it down and building a real house. And the little white cottage? Russ and I drove to Santa Monica one night and knocked on the door. The owner told us yes, it was still for sale. We bought it the next day.

The mist in the morning, the coolness, the thrall of the ocean—Santa Monica was a breath of fresh air. With each move Russ and I had been creeping toward the sea; now we were as close as we could get without swimming to Catalina. It was good to be back in a nest of a house. I took over the second floor, a pint-size converted attic, and pushed my table under the eaves.

I shouldn't have been surprised at my waffling about where I was meant to be next. There was a quality about our life in L.A. that had kept me off balance: our “Hotel California” house in Hollywood, teetering on the brink of a divorce; Russ's job cycles, which jumped from twelve- to sixteen-hour days to his being home 24/7; my swinging back and forth to New York like a metronome; Russ's drinking, which see-sawed between sober and out of control; flipping from house to house three times. Hell, what was an earthquake or two? I tried to put down roots, perhaps a silly notion in a city that was built on sand and prided itself on
not
having roots, in living for the now, and the next best thing.

And what about Santa Monica, that self-advertised paradise by the sea? To a suburb-phobic like me, it was a challenge. Even the zip code confirmed that I was no longer in L.A. And with the suburb came the commute, the brain-numbing hours in the Volvo as I sucked in the fumes of every other car inching its way from somewhere to somewhere else and imagined my lungs shriveling with emphysema. But the alternative was unthinkable, and I refused to adjust my routine of workshops, rehearsals, singing class . . . Often, I would drive in early and go to a hotel lobby, where, like a hooker, I would loiter for an hour or so, nursing a vodka tonic, and there I would write. My choice spot was the new downtown Sheraton, with its atrium, discreet piano player, lush chairs, and macadamia nuts. Early on I had discovered the joy of writing in public, buoyed by the energy of strangers in pursuit of their lives. Now it was a welcome counterpoint to the solitude under my eaves and a reminder that I was still in the land of the living.

In 1991, while in that alcove and deep into my play
Chiaroscuro
, about an aging woman artist, I got a call from Betsy Wilkinson. She and her husband, Bob, an astrologer friend of Russ's, lived in Austin. Though I had met her only once, I had liked her on sight. Now, on the phone, she told me she was a grief counselor and was organizing a national march in Washington, D.C., that would focus on the needs of families who had experienced the death of infants through miscarriage or at birth. Their goal was to draw attention to the emotional damage caused by these traumas and urge lawmakers to provide funding for the education of medical professionals and the counseling of patients. She herself had suffered through multiple miscarriages and had heard from Bob, who had done my chart, about the death of our baby and the lack of empathetic care.

My knee-jerk reaction was to feel that my privacy had been invaded and shut the conversation down. Instead, touched by her warmth and concern, I found myself saying, “Yes. Yes, I will be there.” She filled me in on the details and told me about the quilts they were making, comprised of squares from those who had experienced loss. The quilts would be spread across the Capitol steps.

There is a time for everything. Before I had even hung up the receiver,
my lost child was on my left shoulder. I picked up my pen and on a fresh page of my legal pad these lines wrote themselves:

She had a name. Oh, what would Clem think? A name with no ballast, too gentile, he would say. But I wasn't listening. Emily and I were in the car on our way to the fabric store, where she helped me pick the colors for our squares for the quilt. There would be two: a red one for the “Then,” a white one for the “Now.” And flannel, because she was my baby and I would wrap her and rock her in flannel. We cut the squares according to the specifications Betsy had given me, and we penciled in the lines of the two stanzas. That night we embroidered the words, white thread on red, red thread on white. Then we sewed the two together and the next day mailed them to Austin, where they would be stitched together by grieving women into the quilts that would be arrayed, with purpose and in protest, on the steps of Congress.

A few months later on a Saturday in early spring, I flew to Washington. I went to the hotel, where a welcoming reception was under way. I
signed in, pinned on my name tag, which had Emily's name on it, too, and for a moment had second thoughts about what I was doing there. It was all too public. My loss was mine. My feelings were still so new; to share them would shatter them. I spotted a table of T-shirts with the word REMEMBER on them. Well, I could at least buy a T-shirt. But what color? Then I remembered I wasn't alone, Emily would know. And she did: blue. The simple truth became so clear to me. She had always been with me. I was the one who had been missing. I put on the T-shirt over my blouse. Soon after, Betsy and I found each other. She was all I had imagined. My angel.

The next day our group, having mushroomed to several hundred, was bused across the Potomac to Arlington, where we visited the grave of John Kennedy and Patrick, the son who had died shortly after his birth, in 1963. John and Jackie's first child, a daughter, had been stillborn in 1956. We then walked to a site near the river, where we planted a tree in memory of lost infants. People said a few words, but mostly we stood in silence circling that tree, our hands joined, deep in remembrance and prayer. We watered it with our tears. Before we left I took a leaf that had fallen and pressed it in my journal.

The buses left us at the top of the Mall. What had started as a gray, drizzly day now changed dramatically. The sun shimmered on the cherry trees and the Reflecting Pool. As we neared the Capitol, each now carrying a balloon honoring our children, we could see our quilts spread out on the broad steps, beckoning us. And there, even at some distance, I saw our squares. How could I not? Amid all the pastels, there was my bright red plea for forgiveness.

We sat on chairs and on the steps. There were speakers, some formal, some testifying from the heart of personal experience. I remember little. Through it all, I sobbed as I had never sobbed before. Before we dispersed, we held each other in prayer and then let our balloons go, each with their message, REMEMBER. That was hard for me. I knew I would remember, but I wasn't sure I was ready to let her go. But I did. I was still overflowing with tears as some of us gathered for an early dinner, and then another leave taking, again so difficult.

On the train to New York and to Clem, I knew that before that day,
I had known only that our baby had died, but not that she had lived. Now we knew each other. I knew she forgave me for not letting her into me, just as I had forgiven her for leaving me. Our anger was gone. She was at peace. I was at peace.

Clem and I sat, drinks in hand, in the living room. I hadn't wanted to join him in his office, where a book was always too close at hand. I turned on only one lamp; I wasn't ready for more. I told him about my experience, much of the time with tears in my voice. The telling didn't take long. So much compressed into so little. He was uneasy but attentive as I revealed what had happened to me, but not in a psychological or pragmatic way, the parlance we usually used. My feelings were raw and deep and went beyond neuroses and their effects on behavior and relationships. I held his hand as I talked of acceptance, catharsis, and healing. There was little conversation. When I had finished, we sat for a while. Then I told him our daughter's name, kissed him, and went to bed.

I had whispered her name to Clem. It felt so private. A name is a powerful thing. At her birth I had recoiled at the very thought of naming her and thereby acknowledging her existence. In the late seventies I had run across a 1962 document confirming the cremation of Baby Greenberg. Clem had never mentioned the arrangement, just as I had never asked about what had happened to her. The letter had ended up in a carton of miscellaneous correspondence that Clem, along with the rest of his correspondence, donated over the years to the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. They had returned that particular document, along with a pile of other letters, citing its “personal nature.” As I read it, my body went cold. When the shock had passed, I soothed myself with the thought:
She has a name. It's Emily.

I hated that Clem and I had never been able to find a way to talk about our loss. My tears and words had frozen in time. But I had seen his tears, more abundant than my own, when our baby died. They would have to be enough for both of us. As for words, we had been unable to speak about such unspeakable things. I had seen his tears before her death and would see them again and again, and I knew how deep they ran. The first year we were together I had seen him cry, usually in front of the mirror as he shaved in the morning. Always about his son, Danny. At
first because of Clem's terrible remorse over their irreparably damaged relationship, and then again in the years following the late sixties, after Danny disappeared and we never heard from him again. Clem cried for his lost children. We often talked about Danny. But about the loss of our daughter? That night after I came home from Washington was as close as we would get.