Promise Me

This book captures the spirit of my experiences to the best of my recollection with the help of letters, journals, press clippings, photos, and interviews. To create a readable story of manageable length, it was necessary to condense and combine some events and characters. Suzy’s dialogue is based on her own words in letters to my family. Other dialogue was re-created for dramatic effect, based on interviews, letters, press clippings, and my recollections. Others may remember or interpret certain events and conversations differently. I don’t pretend to remember every exchange verbatim, but I’ve done my best to remain true to the spirit of conversations and events.

Nothing in this book constitutes or is intended as a substitute for medical or legal advice. The opinions expressed are my personal opinions and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of Susan G. Komen for the Cure®, Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure®, Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure®, private donors, corporate sponsors, local affiliates, or associated researchers and other medical professionals, or that of any corporate or nonprofit entity for which I serve, have served, or will serve as a board member now, in the past, or at any time in the future.

There’s no such thing as a “tell all” memoir. Some things have to be omitted to protect the privacy of those involved. The people who’ve contributed time, energy, and rich experience to my life are far too many to mention by name in this book, but I would like to express my deepest thanks to the board of Susan G. Komen for the Cure for their dedication and insight; Alexine Clement Jackson, board chair; the staff at the SGK offices in Dallas and Washington, D.C., for their hard work and good hearts; the leadership at all our local affiliates worldwide for their passion and energy; my fabulous friends in Dallas, especially the founding
members of SGK, who were there in the beginning and made this organization what it is; my family and friends in Peoria, the Land of Milk and Honey, and in Palm Beach, where Mommy and I have found a warm circle of laughter and love. I’d also like to thank everyone who helped make this book a reality: my brilliant literary agent, Dorian Karchmar at William Morris; our terrific editors, Lorraine Glennon, Sydny Minor, and Diane Salvatore; our publisher, Tina Constable, and everyone at Crown Archetype; my mother, who provided a wealth of photographs and memories; my son, Eric Brinker, who was a tremendous source of help and information; Barbara Rogoff, who participated in the live read and curates my Hungarian art collection; Jonathan Blum, Emily Callahan, Susan Carter Johns, Katrina McGhee, John Pearson, Pam Stevens, Elizabeth Thompson, Matt Wendel, Mike Williams, Dr. Eric Winer, and all the very special people who shared their stories.

To all those who aren’t mentioned: Please know that I’m deeply grateful for your presence in the full story, which is written in my heart.

Nancy Goodman Brinker
September 2010

Thanks to my agent, Wendy Sherman; my project assistant, Jerusha Rodgers; Gary and Malachi Rodgers, who provided help and support; and Colleen Thompson, Barbara Sissel, and Fred Ramey, who offered insightful critique on early versions of the manuscript. Much of this book was written at the Dakota Ramblers Writing Retreat in Montana. Thanks to the staff for their music and hospitality.

Joni Rodgers
September 2010

Suzy

M
y waking memories of my sister have grown hazy over the years, but Suzy still passes through my dreams as animate and vivid as a migrating butterfly. Her face is fresh and full of energy, her hair windblown but still beautiful. In a freshly ironed skirt and patent leather ballerina flats, she defies gravity, scrambling over a pile of slick rocks, Roman ruins stacked like unclaimed luggage on a hilly roadside in southern Spain.

Suzy, be careful
, I call as she climbs higher.

Oh, Nanny
, she waves me off, mugging for the boy with the camera. (Boys could never keep their eyes, or cameras, off her.) He tells Suzy to smile.
Say queso!
But she’s already smiling. In studio and fashion photos, she was always slightly Mona Lisa, never
haute couture
haughty. Almost every candid photograph I have of Suzy seems to have been snapped just as she’s bubbling up to giggle, that precise moment when you can see the laughter in her eyes and feel the active upturn of her mouth, but the not-quite sound of it is forever suspended in the air, teasing like the un-played eighth note of a full octave. Even in the dream, I ache for the unfinished music of her life.

Back home, Suzy would write something silly on the back of the photo of the Roman ruins—
I swear, it was like this when we got here!
—while I’d carefully record the date and precise location where the picture was taken. I’m simply not gifted with silliness like Suzy was. I appreciate it as an art form, and I try not to be frustrated by it, but gifted with it? No. I am not.

Suzy wasn’t serious or “bookish” like me, but all her teachers loved her, and I always thought of her as the smart one. In addition to her savant silliness, she was gifted with emotional intelligence, empathy, our
mother’s generous heart, an unfairly fabulous sense of style, and a humming, youthful happiness that made her naturally magnetic. She had a shy side, but people loved her to her dying day because she was just so much fun to be around.

I can be a bit of a task to be around, I’m afraid. I have no talent for sitting still. I’m not capable of pretending something is fine and dandy, when in fact it’s not. If something needs to be said, I’m compelled to say it, and I do it as diplomatically as I can. But let’s face it, candor’s less endearing than coquettishness on any playground. My gifts were sturdy construction, a stalwart sense of justice, and the ability to whistle, ride horses bareback, and skip stones over water as well as any boy. I was a natural bridge builder. Even as a little girl, I was the ambassador between my high-spirited sister and our rightly starched father. She was three years older, but when Suzy was grounded, I was the hostage negotiator. When Suzy exceeded her curfew, I was the peace envoy.

When Suzy died, my life’s work was born. Her meaning became my mission.

Born on Halloween, 1943, in Peoria, Illinois, a gentle and generous place that embodies the very soul of Americana, Suzy was three when I came along in December 1946. Mom says she peered at me over the edge of the bassinet and said, “Well! She’s quite a character.”

We were thick as thieves from that moment on. Suzy was always a queen bee in the neighborhood gang, and I was thrilled to be
Suzy Goodman’s little sister
. I was her entourage, her liege, her cheerful sidekick, ambitiously pedaling my tricycle in the wake of her fleet-footed, inventive escapades. I can’t remember a single instance of her telling me to buzz off or leave her alone or go play with the other kindergarten babies so she could hang out with the big girls who had more sophisticated things to do.

As our mother ages so gracefully, I can’t help thinking what a couple of grand old ladies Suzy and I would have been together. That was our plan from the time we were little girls. My sister and I expected to age gracefully, set up housekeeping, cultivate a nice cutting garden, and sit in lawn chairs, watching our grandchildren play. We never discussed the fate of our beloved spouses; we just naturally assumed we’d outlive them in some “God’s in his Heaven, all’s right with the world” kind of way. It
never crossed our minds that we’d be hip-broken or infirm. Not us. We’d be the spry old dames delivering Meals on Wheels, organizing holiday toy drives, knitting mittens for the underprivileged, quilting lap robes for all the tragic polio children.

T
he muggy summer of 1952 teemed with mosquitoes and clingy midwestern humidity. The school year ended (I was fresh out of first grade, Suzy liberated from fourth), but instead of that lazy, hazy wide-open summer feeling, we found ourselves in a world of closed doors and shuttered windows. It seemed to Suzy and me as if the city of Peoria had pulled into itself like a turtle, afraid to poke so much as a toe out to do anything. The ice cream parlor and candy store closed up shop. The streets and sidewalks felt muted and unfamiliar. Women hurried through the grocery store, holding the cart handle with a fresh hanky or dishcloth. We’d already been told there would be no movies, no carnivals, no concerts in the park. When Mother told us the municipal pool was closed, Suzy groaned.