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Authors: Cathy Lamb

The First Day of the Rest of My Life (42 page)

BOOK: The First Day of the Rest of My Life
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Despite himself, he chuckled.
So did I. Laughter and pain, they do go together sometimes.
We held our granddad, a bowed man, as the owl offered its final piercing, haunting hoot, the luminescent light of the moon shone down, and the lavender readied itself to bloom.
Was stealing the forged papers that belonged to another Jewish family wrong?
Yes.
Would you have done the same thing?
No?
Yes?
Are you sure?
Can you even begin to conceptualize what it would be like to have your entire family’s life at stake? To be chased down by, as Grandma called them, the black ghosts? Could you truly look into your child’s eyes and not do everything possible—everything—to save her?
And even though we speculate how we would react, how do we know? How does anyone know, in a tragedy, under threat of a beastly, ghastly death, in a state of raging fear, how they’re going to react? No one knows unless they’ve been there.
You wouldn’t have done what my granddad did? You wouldn’t have stolen those papers? Are you absolutely sure about that answer?
I’m not.
My guess is that I would have done what he did. And, like him, I would have been haunted the rest of my life by the smiling faces of the other family.
The real Laurents.
 
I was up all night. I hiked the property, sat on the wrought iron bench on the hill, lay on top of the table in the gazebo, spun a cartwheel over the rows of lavender, watched the sun come up and over the hills, the sweet pinks, tangy oranges, a slash of purple, a hint of maroon stretching across the horizon, everything fresh, new, dewy. I listened to Mozart in my head and thought about scratches and dents, and butterfly blood.
Annie saw me as she was walking her dogs. They circled her, ran forward, then back, as if to make sure she was still there, their tongues lolling about, tails wagging. Life was splendid for those dogs, an adventure to be had every day. Trailing behind her was Cat, who thinks she’s a dog. I’m surprised she didn’t try barking.
She came and sat by me. Door and Window, white and fluffy, cuddled into my lap, Mr. Legs kept running in circles. Three legs, but he didn’t let that stop him. He was happy. Happy to be in the country, happy to sniff, happy to be. Nope, losing a leg was nothin’. He was moving on. Where was that squirrely squirrel? He’d get him, by golly, no squirrel was going to outsmart him!
After a few minutes of friendly, sisterly silence, I said, “Annie, you were right.”
She nodded. “Let’s walk.”
We talked as we walked through the rows of lavender. Several times I bent down and picked up a colorful marble between the plants, dropped by our momma as a girl, dropped by Annie and me, and our grandma. I tucked them back into the lavender and let them be.
As the sun rose high, it shone down in yellow stripes through the clouds. It shone on our friendship, a friendship that I treasured more than anything else. It shone on the sister love that only sisters share.
“So, what do you think?” I asked.
“What do I think of your wild-ass plan?” She threw a ball and Mr. Legs chased after it. “Rock it out, Madeline. I’m with you.”
 
I told Granddad of my “wild-ass” plan later.
We were in Grandma’s studio. He had pulled out a few canvasses, as he often does, to admire Grandma’s work. He has always been her most ardent supporter. “She is an artist of artists. Imaginative! Creative! Such emotions in her paintings! Such truth! The children love her paintings, but not as much as their parents!”
The artist was lost in the dips and caverns of her mind, but to him, she was always his Emmanuelle or, perhaps I should say at this point, his
Dynah,
the woman he loved.
This time he was admiring her sister swan series. On one canvas two white swans jumped rope together, dressed in matching purple hippie outfits. In another a black swan with a green flowered hat was playing the cello, the other black swan, in a yellow flowered hat, played violin. Another painting showed two white swans dancing together in twenties-style gold dresses, ropes of pearls, and high gold heels.
Annie and I don’t dance. We haven’t danced since the house by the sea.
“What do you think, Granddad?” I had asked the questions I needed to ask; I had the answers I needed to have. “If you don’t want me to do this, if you have the slightest objection, I won’t do it. I understand.” I held my breath.
“You own the story of your life, Madeline, no one else.” He put his chin up and reached for my hand. “Tell the story. Tell it the way you want it told.”
“Okay,” I whispered, petrified.
He wrapped me in his arms and, amidst Grandma’s sister swans, we stood and hugged.
Life is so much better when you have someone to wrap your wings around.
 
I worked like a fiend for days. I saw clients, had meetings with the Rock Your Womanhood chiefs, long ones, short ones, rushed and hurried, laugh filled, problem filled, we hammered things out. I worked on my speech, finished my column, the title being, “Giving a Speech: Don’t Wet Your Pants.”
I felt like wetting my pants.
 
Steve Shepherd would soon arrive in Portland to talk about his latest book in the Pink series. Another evening had been added. It sold out, too. He would give his speeches not too long after I gave mine.
At my office I received a bouquet of wildflowers in a twelve-inch-long canoe. Yes, the vase was shaped like a canoe.
“I’m going to be in Portland, Madeline. Can I take you to lunch? If you want, I’ll build you a dinosaur made out of rocks.” He left his cell number.
I wouldn’t call him. I couldn’t.
In my head, though, I heard my momma.
Gather your hellfire.
I ran my hands through my stick straight hair. I wasn’t feeling very hellfirish.
Put your heels on, Madeline!
All I had was boring heels.
Don’t you dare be a frump. Don’t you dare! Let yourself shine.
Okay, Momma. I’ll try. I’ll try to shine.
You can do it, Pink Girl.
 
I heard the symphony in my head the night before the Rock Your Womanhood speech. They were playing Brahms’s Hungarian Dance no. 5. At the end, I swear I could hear clapping.
I thought about the lies I’d told to myself, to others, and the past I’d secreted away like a prisoner behind bars.
I thought about my momma and my grandparents, all living under their own lies and secrets. My momma had left Anna in France and become Marie Elise. My granddad had left Abe, my grandma had left Dynah. They came here and buried who they had been. My granddad had tried to bury what he had done to the Laurents. None of them had been able to bury the grief they felt for Ismael, for Madeline, for the rest of their families.
I do so love the liars in my family.
I thought next about a sailboat, a beauty parlor, a dad who wore funny hats, a momma who doled out advice in pink heels. I thought about lavender. The healing power of lavender.
When I was done, I thought about the sea.
30
“H
elloooo again, ladies!” I shouted into the raucous cheers and hoots, the women on their feet, spotlights flying, rock music blaring in the background, my voice echoing around the conference center.
I wriggled, I did not
dance,
waved my hands, grinned, bowed, grinned more, showed my canines. The video screens on either side of me flashed out, “Madeline O’Shea! Rock Your Womanhood!” in loud colors.
“Have you been rocking your womanhood today?”
Whooee. You betcha they had. Their womanhood was on full blast speed.
“Who has brought their O’Shea’s Inner Fight-Kicking Spirit?”
They’d done that, too. I had told them how to gather their O’Shea Inner Fight-Kicking Spirit during my first speech, at the beginning of the conference. “Let’s see it, ladies!”
Though I was nearly blinded by spotlights, I saw those high heels flying as women kickboxed the air or held up their heels above their heads.
“Who is gunning to Release Yourself From Whack Job Men and Memories?”
The women made fake guns with their hands and yelled
pow, pow, pow,
like I’d taught them. It was deafening.
“Who is here to Rip-Roaring Enjoy the Hell Out of Life?’
Their screaming ’bout blew my head off.
I went on like that for a while. The rock music roared in and out, the lights changed colors, purple, blue, pink. Pink. How ironic. What a circus. All I needed was a decorated elephant and a lion tamer.
“Okay, ladies, have a seat on your fantabulous bottoms.” I didn’t think that Carlotta would mind me borrowing her word.
“What I want to talk about now, today, this moment, is truth.”
I took a deep breath. I’d made my decision. It was my wild-ass plan. Once all was out, all was out. I’d probably be finished in this career, but hell. If I didn’t ever have to wear a soul-crushing suit like I was wearing today, this time in boring beige, I think I’d be okay.
“I want to talk about honesty, about being
who you are,
and embracing
who you were.
” I strutted across the stage. “I want to talk about dealing truthfully with your past, not hiding from it, and understanding how it embraces or suffocates you still today. I want to talk about being truthful with yourself. I want to talk about facing the lies in your life and replacing them with bald-faced, raw, rumbling truth. In fact”—I paused, knowing I was going to be way, way over a ledge in about one minute—“I want to talk about me.”
Whew.
Did I just say that?
I swallowed hard. I heard a
click, click, click
in my head. I felt slick, sweaty hands. I smelled fear and cigarettes.
Then I heard a fiddler.
A fiddler.
Right then. Boot-stomping, heel-kicking, fiddle music.
I breathed in, not a good breath, but breath.
“I want to talk about my truth. I want to talk about my lies. The lies in my life, the lies I’ve told myself, the lies I’ve perpetuated to everyone else. I want to talk about my past, my childhood, my secrets.”
I could feel all those ladies lean forward in their seats.
“You see, friends, I’m a lie.”
Silence.
“I’ve been lying to you.”
Cavernous silence, quite gripping, actually. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the chiefs of the Rock Your Womanhood conference freeze up. I had not discussed with them my lies!
“I’ve been telling you all what to do and how to run your lives, yet I haven’t even been following my own advice. I’m like the financial planner who is bankrupt. The psychologist who ignores his mental problems. The roofer who denies that a river is flowing through his house through the roof. I’m a life coach whose life has collapsed.”
Backstage the chiefs were now clutching each other in fear.
I paused, gathered my hellfire. “I’ve told you not to get mired in muck, but I’m so mired in muck I can barely move. I’ve told you to leave your past hurts behind, to make a new life, but I am so stuck in my old life I’m surprised I’m not attached to a time machine. I’ve told you not to allow any borders to delineate where you can go in your life, yet I have borders so high you could not scramble over them with a fire ladder and a personal rocket. I have told you to create a home that is a frame for your joy, but I hate my house. I have told you to dress like you are on the fashion runway of life, so that your clothes reflect your blossoming. I hate my clothes. I hate my suits. I have told you not to buy into the material things of life because you’ll never be happy, but I have an expensive car and expensive clothes, all bought to convince myself that I’m someone. It has never worked.”
I stalked across the stage, my face up on those ginormous video screens. “I have secrets that I have desperately, with every fiber of my being, tried to hide, and yet . . . I can’t hide them anymore. Someone else has taken control of my past and is going to reveal those secrets very soon.”
I felt so calm suddenly. So very calm. Annie was somewhere out there. In my head, I reached for her hand.
“In the last months someone else has taken control of my life. I have told you a thousand times not to allow that to happen. You. Take. Control. Do not be a guest in your own life, do not let someone run your life, do not stay offstage. Be onstage, and be the star of your life. But I have not taken that advice myself. Someone else has decided that now is the time to reveal who I am to you. To everyone.”
I stopped and tapped a heel. “I’m not gonna let them do that. No, I’m done. I’m taking the control back. Ladies, I want to tell you about my childhood.”
I told them about Marie Elise’s French Beauty Parlor, and they belly laughed and smiled at my stories of plumes of hair spray, Grandmother Schiller, Shoney’s paintings of naked women in town, my momma’s blunt advice, her pink outfits, the chandeliers. I told about Carman’s champagne drinking while reading love scenes aloud from bodice busters, Trudy Jo’s ranting about her children and Shakespeare, Shell Dee’s fascination with the human body. I told them how I played violin with our momma, how Annie played piano with our dad, how we made up songs together and danced on the grass by our house by the sea.
I told them about Big Luke, and how we painted his nails and made him funny hats that he wore and how he encouraged us to be ourselves. I talked about the storm that killed him and watching my momma on the cliff with her pink shawl flying behind her. I could hear women sniffling in the front rows.
And, finally, I talked about Sherwinn, Pauly, and Gavin.
I did not become too graphic. What would be the point? But I told about what happened in our own home with Sherwinn, the dilapidated shack, the slimy feel of the walls, the metallic taste of the water, the old pizza lying about.
I told them what we had to do for the
click, click, click.
I heard their gasps, moans, more tears. In fact, I put several photos up on the video screens. They weren’t the most graphic, but you got the point. I did not leave them there long.
I tried not to cry. It didn’t work, but I did not let my tears ruin the rhythm, the message of my speech. Soon it began to feel like a group cry.
I spoke about the trial, and how my momma shot all three of those sick monsters and said, “This is from Big Luke. He’s going to escort you to hell. Good-bye,” and how I’ve heard those six gunshots my whole life.
I told them about her tumor, her terminal illness, how she had to guarantee herself that her girls would live to see their own grandchildren. I told them about her trial, the cotton candy pink heels and the yellow hope ribbon, her excruciating physical pain and how she dedicated the last months of her life to us until it was unbearable and she took the boat out, dropped herself into the sea, and met our dad in the clouds.
I had to pause there and wipe my face. I noticed the Rock Your Womanhood chiefs out of the corner of my eye. They were riveted.
I told the ladies how I had tried to bury everything, and how it hadn’t worked.
“I’m damaged.” I admitted that truth into the caverns of the conference center, knowing Annie was there. “I. Am. Damaged. I am damaged down to the core of my soul and, currently, unfortunately, I’m being blackmailed for the photos that were taken of my sister and me as children.”
I heard the gasp. Thousands of women sucking in air at once.
“Blackmailed. Some creep sent me the photos and told me if I didn’t hand over an insane amount of money, he would hand those photos out like candy. I don’t want the photos out there, but more than that, I do not want to be held captive by this man. I can’t. I can’t have one more man ruining my life, controlling any part of it. I won’t have it.”
“Good for you, Madeline, you ass kicker!” One woman stood and raised her fist in victory.
Another woman, about twenty rows back, stood and yelled, “That’s right! Don’t take any shit!”
A third. “Captivity is not for us, Madeline! We’re women!”
“So I took action.” I let my voice rise.
“Yeah! Yeah!” those noisy women yelled, then applauded.
“I called the police.” They applauded louder. They got on their feet!
“As we speak, that man is being arrested.”
“Yeeesss!”
“He will pay for what he’s done.” I did not mention how Sam’s house had been exploded.
Woo-ha! Hee-haw! Ear-splitting noise.
I did not repeat the comment from the woman in the front row who yelled, “I hope they cut his penis off!”
Or the comment from her girlfriend, which was, “Boil his balls! Boil his balls!”
I then made a short rant on porn—how it’s an infectious disease in our country, how children are being abused, how I would stand for children in this terrible business, how it would be my new mission in life. “I’m out of the closet, and I will drag other people out of the closet who are committing criminal acts against our kids!”
Whooee! They fisted their hands in Woman Power victory, like I’d taught them.
As they were screaming, I remembered my visit with the Portland FBI days before.
They came to my house in Portland. Annie was there, too. We showed them the photos and the blackmail notes. The latest: $350,000. Or else.
Even the FBI guys looked a little green as they stared at the photos.
Keith Stein, my bulldog attorney, whom I had asked to be with us, started bawling like a baby.
I showed them the latest note. I told them who I thought it was. Pauly’s son, Sam.
“We’ll fry him,” the FBI guy said.
“And the pictures,” I said. “I don’t want them released. I don’t want anyone to see them.”
“We understand,” the agent said. He had white hair and eyes that had been around the block a thousand difficult times. He cleared his throat. “Miss O’Shea, I’m sorry this happened to you and your sister. I remember the case. I was a young rookie in Boston then and I’m . . .” He cleared his throat again. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” another agent said, her hair pulled back in a clip. “Tragic. How are you ladies doing?”
Annie and I glanced at each other. “Not bad,” I said.
“We’re not feeling explosive anymore,” Annie said.
I tried not to laugh.
Keith the bulldog kept bawling like a baby.
I waved all the clapping, hooting women back down.
“I also recently found out that I am not who I thought I was. You see, my momma’s maiden name was Marie Elise Laurent. That’s the name under which she was traveling from France, then to Spain, after walking over the Pyrenees and traveling to America when she was a young girl. That was the name on her papers. Her father’s name was Anton Laurent, her mother’s name was Emmanuelle Laurent. But those weren’t their real names. Their real names, I have come to find, were Abe Bacherach and Dynah Rossovsky. My momma’s real name was Anna Bacherach. They were Jews. My grandma is not my biological grandma, she is my great-aunt. I’ll wait until you can get ahold of all this. It took me a bit.”
I waited. While I waited, I breathed. My breathing was easier. The air didn’t seem stuck so bad.
“My biological grandma’s name was Madeline Rossovsky Bacherach, I am named for her. My grandma Madeline jumped from a second-story window, her son in her arms, while being chased by the Nazis. Her injuries were extensive. She dragged herself to a doctor’s home, someone willing to help, but was too injured to escape. When my granddad and my grandma Emmanuelle refused to leave her, she killed herself with a knife.”
I did not miss yet another gasp in that audience. A collective inhale.
“My family, what was left of it, fled from the Nazis. They fled to live.”
I told the rest of that complicated story, but I did not tell about how Granddad stole the papers. I couldn’t cause him more pain, especially in his condition, at his age, and not here. It wasn’t my place, and it would do no good for the smiling Laurents.
BOOK: The First Day of the Rest of My Life
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