If Only There Was A Word Called Adulting
By Kalee
Posted on 2022-02-22
Blurb: What if Anne and Frederick had kept their first engagement, braving through the challenges of war-induced separation, the Elliot family's disapproval and a starter income? This modern AU brings all the contexts that broke canon Anne and Frederick apart to the 21st century. The story is told in 27 chapters and 9 parts, with each 3-chapter part themed on a verse of Joni Mitchell's song
Both Sides Now
. With Anne, Mary and Frederick's POV's taking 3 parts each (Clouds, Love, and Life) it explores the multifaceted nature of young love when the two people involved are forced to grow up too soon - a life with great challenges but also amazing intangible rewards.
Anne Elliot, so young; known to so few, to be snatched off by a stranger without alliance or fortune; or rather sunk by him into a state of most wearing, anxious, youth-killing dependence! - Persuasion
Prologue - Anne
June 2000, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Did you know Joni Mitchell was only 23 years old when she wrote
Both Sides Now
? That was one of the songs Grandma used to play on our CD player at home when I was a kid; she said it was one of Mom’s favourite songs, and so Grandma always played it when she was thinking of Mom. I was too little to properly remember Mom when she died, so that song was one of the things I grew up associating with her. I love how poetic the lyrics are, the way she paints pictures of dreams with the words. But now that 23 years old is not that far away for me, I wonder how she got wise enough to have those words in her mind when she wrote that song.
Oh oops, I forgot to introduce myself. My name’s Anne Elliot, I’m 22 years old, and I just got engaged 2 days ago to the love of my life. But if you think that’s romantic enough to make you swoon, um, well, it’s not. Because I’m living the absolute anti – fairy tale right now, since the reality of being an adult is just starting to hit me and it means I have a lot of big responsibilities to take care of. For starters, a girl who just got engaged isn’t supposed to be alone, but I am, because Frederick, my fiancé, has flown off to Lackland to start a year of military pilot training. And I don’t have the luxury of sitting around making moony eyes at his photograph when I need to turn in my keys in a matter of hours; I’m in an empty apartment, with the best memories of my life all packed up in boxes, calling up the movers to figure out how to ship a beat-up car across the country because I will be going to work for Boeing in Everett. The car is Frederick’s, and he asked me to junk it for him because he’ll be able to afford something better when he can live in someplace other than the single dorms on base (hint hint – that would mean military family housing once we’re married), but how could I possibly let it go when it’s the biggest tangible reminder I have of the four years we’ve enjoyed here in each other’s company? That leaves me spending the first days of my engaged life buried up to my neck in the logistics of moving cross-country, travelling two thousand miles away from my beloved. Yeah, right, the greatest height of romance, indeed.
Three days ago, we were students. We actually, y’know,
belonged
here. We knew all the short cuts to get to class, all the alleyways we could zip through on our bikes. Memorized all the rooms by heart, never mind that MIT is this weird dorky place where rooms go by their numbers, not their names. We knew our routines like the backs of our hands: our favourite places to dash out to for mid-afternoon coffee fixes, which food trucks we would get our lunch from on which day of the week, which corners of the libraries were the quietest to park ourselves in between classes, where the sunniest spots were to chill outside in spring and summer. Worked nights and weekends in the lab, only to turn in our key cards and forever lose access to that very building we practically lived in. Planned our spring break vacations, eager for the next backpacking adventure to satiate our wanderlust. There was always something to look forward to, someplace to go, and someone to hang out with. Graduation was the fairy tale we lived for, and now that graduation is over, what happens? We get booted out of campus, and those buildings are going to be right here in the fall, standing witness to another generation of students, as if we’d never existed at all. I realize, heartbreakingly, that the minute I close up the apartment and hand the keys over to my landlord, that will be the moment when both of us have left this place, and this time it’s forever. Forever and ever and ever. That just sounds so permanent, when the only thing I’ve ever known how to do is go to school, but now I don’t have a school to go back to again, and that thought is barely sinking in.
Someone needs to make up a word for this – what do you do when overnight, you go from being – not quite a kid, but still, a college kid, a student – to being “an adult”, just because you’ve graduated? And
engaged
– that word sounds so serious, so adult too. Oh of course, I love Frederick to bits, and I want him in my life forever. I’ve always known that I want to marry him, but at the same time, marriage is something you do when you grow up, and being grown-up hardly feels real right now when I'm still on campus and haven't even started my very first real job yet. In that respect, I’m one of the lucky ones; I actually have the Boeing job waiting for me, so I will be able to earn and save money for Frederick and me. Not like some of our classmates, who have to suffer the inconvenience of becoming boomerang kids going back to their teenage bedrooms and "the parental units" because they’re still looking for jobs. And I’ve been to work before, done summer jobs and internships, so none of this is completely new. But this time, there will be no end date when I can ditch the sensible shoes and briefcase to go back to living in carpenter jeans and Chuck Taylors, schlepping around town with my messenger bag. I may be an adult now, in name and technically in age at least, but dressing like an adult (how stodgy is that!) is still the last thing I want to do.
It’s more than 10 years ago now, but sometimes, I remember my childhood almost as if it were yesterday, as if I could go right back there tomorrow. The cotton-candy-pink bedroom that was my haven after school; Austen and Bronte and Sweet Valley High and Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume and V.C. Andrews all on my bookshelf; the years when I had the luxury of spending entire days in fairy-tale daydreams, staring at the blue sky with gossamer clouds that Mom painted on my ceiling when I was three, a year before she passed away. She might have been gone before I could properly get to know her, but she gifted me with the ability to dream. And I’m taking you there with me right now.
Part I - Chapter 1 (Anne)
Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feathered canyons everywhere
I’ve looked at clouds that way
–
Both Sides Now
, Joni Mitchell
September 1985, Orlando, Florida
Lizzie’s been doing tons and tons of pageants this year. She won the ones in our state, and so now we’re doing all the faraway ones too. Mary didn’t come with us, ‘cos she’s too little, and so she gets to stay home with her nanny. But I have to sit and watch while our au pair does Lizzie’s hair and makeup, making twisty curls from her blond hair one by one, and painting her lips red like roses. I don’t know how she stands it, ‘cos it hurts to get your hair pulled and twisted on a hot rod like that.
I’ve got all my books with me, so I won’t get bored. There’s
Little Women
, and the whole
Ramona
series, and
Charlotte’s Web
too. And Father promised we can go to Disney World when Lizzie is done and ride the magic teacups and go to Epcot to see the world. He’s said that so many times already and we never ended up doing it. But maybe, just maybe, this time it’ll happen for real.
“Little girl, what is your name?” The lady sitting next to me has her hair all done up in curls and is wearing a bright pink suit with matching heels. “Oh, you’re reading
Little Women
, are you? How sweet. Which sister do you want to be?”
“I’m Anne Elliot,” I say. I’m not sure if I really like this lady. She looks fierce and snooty, like Aunt March if she were real. “My sister Lizzie – Elizabeth – is in the pageant. And I think I want to be Beth, ‘cause she’s good and kind.”
“Hmph. Do you know what happened to Beth? She died,” the lady says in a sniffy kind of voice. “My daughter’s name is also Anne, and she’s got the spirit of Jo and the beauty of Amy. There she is – see that girl right over there?”
Where she’s pointing, there is this small, thin girl standing next to Lizzie, with brown hair and a grumpy look on her face. I don’t think she’s prettier than my sister, but of course, I can’t say that.
“She’s really pretty,” It’s a lie, but you have to be polite to grown-ups. “Ma’am? What’s your name?”
“You can call me Mrs. de Bourgh. Mrs. Catherine de Bourgh.”
The music starts, so Mrs. de Bourgh stops talking to me. And if Beth has to die, that’s so unfair. She’s the nicest sister, after all. It’s so confusing, how they tell you in school that you have to be good and polite and nice and kind, but all the time, it’s the mean girls who win. Like Lizzie, who gets the trophy tonight, just like I expected.
December 1985, John F. Kennedy Airport, New York
Father didn’t bring us to Disney World after the pageant in the end. He said we skipped too much school, so we had to go back. But he’s trying to make up for it by bringing us to a real imperial palace for Christmas, in Japan. He says if we lived a hundred years ago, our family would have a palace like that too, so we don’t need to go see pretend castles like the ones in Disneyland.
Grandma shows me the map, how this line from New York to Tokyo is the longest one of them all. She says we’re going farther away than anyone else in our town has ever been. “A great honour and distinction,” is what she calls it. Did I say that right? But I don’t really care about big words like that, ‘cos what’s more fun is, this is the first time we get to sleep on an airplane. We’re going to sleep, and then wake up somewhere else, isn’t that magic?
The plane has lots of things in pictures, but I don’t need pictures when I’m in second grade now and can read just about anything. We go up a beautiful staircase which goes round and round, to the second floor. In our seats, there’s cards saying
Boeing 747-200B
– wait – I think I read that somewhere, the Boeing 747 is the
world’s biggest airplane
! So Father can make magic after all, ‘cos there’s only one plane that’s the biggest in the world. And Father found that one plane and got us into it!
So many things are magic on this plane – they give us our dinner, with salad and dessert and everything just like a restaurant, except it’s all in little plates on a tray – and it’s so delicious. I wonder how they can cook all this food in the sky. And when I need to brush my teeth to go to sleep, Grandma brings out these toothbrushes and little tubes of toothpaste they’ve given us and shows me in the bathroom how you can pull out a little paper cup to rinse your mouth. To be polite, you have to cover the toilet seat with paper before you pee and wipe off the sink after you’ve washed your hands. It’s almost like a mini hotel, only it’s up here in the sky and you can look out the window and see clouds. They’re real clouds, but they’re around and under you, not up above.
They even know what time it is, ‘cos when it’s dark outside they turn off the lights and give you pillows and blankets, and there’s breakfast for you when you wake up. I’m so happy my family doesn’t have a palace in Detroit, ‘cos if we did, we won’t have to go other places to see palaces. We won’t need magic anymore. Lizzie can go be a princess if she wants (and she does), but I like magic better, any time.
November 1986, Detroit, Michigan
“Anne?” Our au pair puts a hand on my shoulder. “Anne, it’s OK. It’s just a movie, it isn’t real. Here’s a Kleenex, OK? Come on, we have to go now, the car’s waiting for us downstairs.”
“Anne, can’t you stop crying already? You’re just like a baby. Please, for heaven’s sake, just stop. You’re so embarrassing.” It’s Liz, who’s almost eleven and thinks she’s so grown-up. That’s her favourite word now, “embarrassing”. Every time me and Mary do anything, she’ll say that all the time, this year.
“Anne is a ba-by!” Mary chimes in. “Hee-hee, I’m not a baby. Anne is a baby, ‘cos she cried. See? I didn’t cry, see?”
“There, there, child.” Mary’s nanny holds the Kleenex to my nose. “Just blow, that’s a good girl. They’re all OK, aren’t they? Fievel found his family in the end, and now he’s back with his mommy and daddy again. Now, we need to get your face cleaned up for dinner later, OK?” She wipes my face gently with one of the wet towels she’s brought for Mary, and slowly, I nod and my tears stop.
I’ve watched movies in the theatre before, but none of the other ones ever made me so sad like this. Fievel is seven, and I’m eight. He got lost in the sea when he moved to America with his mommy and daddy and sister, and they missed each other so much. I wish my family was simple like that. I wish I could call Father Daddy, just like all the other kids at school, and I wish he could be like all the other daddies who piggyback their little girls and swing them in the air and play with them. I wish I had a mommy
and
Grandma, not just Grandma like what I do now. A mommy who cooks dinner at home and shows me how to bake cookies, like the way Charlie Musgrove’s mom does. All I want to do when I grow up is to be a mommy in a home like Charlie’s, but I want to have a house full of kids, so my kids won’t be lonely like him. But when the adults ask you what you want to be when you grow up, you can’t tell them you just want to be a mom in a home. You have to make up stuff, like saying you want to be a teacher or a doctor or something like that. Those are the answers they like to hear.
Anyway, the song is so beautiful, I have to learn how to sing it. And so I write to Santa, and he brings me a Walkman for Christmas with the cassette tape. I can’t ask Santa for people, or for people to be different from what they are, but I can ask Santa or Father for things, and they’ll come to me. At Charlie’s after school, I keep playing and stopping the tape, writing down the words of the song one at a time.
And – even – though- I – know – how – very – far – apart – we – are -
“Anne?” Charlie pokes me, and I push the earphones behind my ears so I can hear him. “Why are you giving yourself a spelling test?”
“This isn’t a spelling test,” I explain. “See, it’s a song. It’s from that movie called” – I flip the tape cover over – “
An American Tail
. It’s about this little mouse who gets lost on the ship when he travels to America, and at night he misses his big sister. It’s so beautiful I just want to learn and remember it.”
Charlie helps me get the rest of the words, lending me his boom box so we can listen to the song together. We figure out which parts Fievel and Tanya are singing and start trying out the tune ourselves. It’s just right – he’s a boy, and I’m a girl. Fievel’s seven, and Tanya’s eight. We’re both eight, but that’s OK ‘cos Charlie sometimes acts like he’s littler than eight so he can be Fievel no problem.
“My, my. Isn’t that sweet?” Mrs. Musgrove is standing by Charlie’s door, and she’s clapping. I didn’t know we were that good, but it makes me happy if she likes it.
If we could do this for the school play – then I would get a costume made just for me, just like Liz gets for her pageants, and I can show everyone how special this song is. And our teacher, Miss Dashwood, is so nice and sweet, I think she’ll listen if I talk to her about it. And of course, Grandma brings me and Charlie to the dressmaker, the same one who makes Liz’s pageant dresses, with the picture book to get our Fievel and Tanya costumes made.
“Anne, why do you have to choose a play about poor people?” says Liz. “Or actually, they’re poor mice. Poor as church mice. How embarrassing. It’s such a waste making this costume when you have to sew patches on it, don’t you think? Father’s paying to make this dress for you, and you’re wasting all that money to make a fake poor-people dress.”
I don’t know what to say to Liz, and I never thought about whether Fievel and Tanya are rich or poor. If I can feel happy or sad the way they do, doesn’t that mean we’re all the same? Besides, the school play is pretend anyway, so even if I pretend to be poor, it’s only make-believe. It won’t make us poor for real. So Liz is just being silly but she’s older so I can’t tell her she’s wrong.
In the end, all the parents were clapping really loud at the end of our song, so we must have been really good after all. “A standing ovation,” Grandma calls it, and she told us we were simply lovely, so good we made her want to cry. And so now I know why songs can be magic. It’s because they make you feel, and they can make everyone around you feel the same things too.
March 1989, William B. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport, Georgia
Finally, Father is really bringing us to Disneyland this time! We have to go to lots of airports and keep changing planes, but Grandma tells me this is the very last one, and then we’ll get there. Most of the time, we get to sit in first class in the front of the plane, but this time, Grandma is behind us, pushing us to keep walking on.
“Girls, look, this isn’t worthy of the Elliot family, and I hope this is the first and last time we will be doing this, but it’s spring break and First Class was full. So, we will fly coach just this one time, all right?” she says.
“Coach?” Liz stops short when she reaches the wall that is, I think, the end of the First Class section. She sticks out her neck and sniffs. “P-U! It stinks! I don’t want to go there!”
Mary tugs at Grandma’s sleeve, making wrinkles in her neatly ironed blouse. “Gran-ma,” she wails. “There’s
so
many kids here, and someone’s gonna puke on me and make me
sick.
I wanna go
home
.”
So, I’m the only one who’s interested to see what’s behind that wall. “Excuse me, Liz”, I tell her and gently push past, getting into a space where there are rows and rows of red-and-blue seats. There’s lots of people, families with kids, loading up the seats and bins with Mickey Mouse ears, stuffed animals of every kind, and colourful character backpacks. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stuffed animals anywhere except at FAO Schwarz. People are all getting into their seats over on the other side of the plane, but we’ve blocked up everyone trying to get in on our side.
“Grandma, hurry up!” I call. “We gotta get in, so other people can come in too. Please tell me when to stop, OK?”
Liz and Mary can carry on all they want, but I love this, being able to pretend we’re just a regular family going to Disneyland and seeing all the other kids having fun and going there too. I don’t even mind that Father won’t let us get Minnie Mouse ears,
undignified
is what he calls them, because fifth graders ought to be too big for them anyway, and I’ve got my first pair of sneakers to make up for it. These are high-tops with bits of pink flower petals and diamonds all over them, beautiful floral patterns carved into the soles, with cute little bows at the back. They’re a style which Liz liked enough to want a pair for herself too, even though I was the one who picked them out first.
“Oh my god, Anne!” she’d squealed. “Those are
so
cool, d’you know they’re the ones Priscilla Presley wore?” That’s the first time Liz ever liked anything I picked out, so it made me feel amazing, like I could be one of the popular girls too.
“We’re at our row, girls”, calls out Grandma, who’s been dragging Liz and Mary right behind me. She opens up a piece of paper and reads. “The travel agent says, this is a DC-10, seating two-five-two, and they’ve reserved a block in the middle for the five of us. Girls, can you get seated quickly,
please
?”
“Dibs on the end!” says Liz, then reconsiders. “But there’s so many people moving around, no, I take that back, I’m not going to the end ‘cos I just wanna sit with us, not to be with
all
these other people. Anne, why don’t you go to the end?”
I dive quickly across to the other end of the row of seats, jamming my hot pink UCB backpack under the seat in front of me because I can’t reach the overhead bin. It’s Mary’s turn to carry on now, wailing about how she’s stuck in the middle and can’t get out. To block them all out of my head, I pick up the safety card and read the top.
Lockheed L-1011 TriStar
, it says. TriStar – that’s a beautiful name for a plane. It sounds like magic, just like the way flying is magic, spiriting you through the sky to someplace new.
By now, I’m used to the experience of going up, up in the air, getting through, and then above the clouds. Even though we’re in the middle this time so I can only see a tiny piece of the blue sky out the window, it’s still like a fairy tale anyway. Because we’re on a TriStar, a magic plane taking us to the Magic Kingdom, the place where dreams come alive.
March 1989, Disneyland, Anaheim, LA
Now that we’re here at the Magic Kingdom, I don’t know why I dreamed about this place for so many years. There’s lines and lines, and we need to wait practically an hour to get into anything. Mary’s six, but she still wants her stroller, and when she sees the kids in wheelchairs going right to the front of the line, she wants to go too. Liz thumbs her nose at everything calling it babyish, and I agree with her a little now that I’m practically eleven. I can’t pretend to believe that flying Dumbos and spinning teacups are real anymore, and I’m not sure I can go on Space Mountain without getting, well, would you call it airsick? Seasick?
And when I think about it, what I loved about the idea of Disneyland was, it’s a place that makes magic for kids. I wanted to be someplace where I could be with a lot of other kids, all being happy together. So why aren’t the kids happy here? If I thought I was the only kid in the world with sisters like Liz and Mary, I was wrong. I see kids going full nuclear in the gift shop ‘cause their moms won’t buy the stuff they want. Toddlers screaming ‘cause they’re tired of waiting in line. Little girls squirming and fidgeting through princess makeovers I wouldn’t have wanted even when I was six (though Liz might have when she was little). The whole idea that this make-believe place is happy, is make-believe too.
But somehow, before it’s time to go home, we figure out ways to be happier anyway. Father suggests we go to Hollywood, and Liz loves the sidewalk with all the stars. We hang out at Santa Monica Beach, and Father says yes when I ask him to rent a bike for me. I’ve just learned how to ride a two-wheeler, and it feels great even though I’m not allowed to go fast so Grandma can still keep an eye on me. Mary whines less when we don’t have to wait in long lines.
So magic is good only till you’re ten, I guess. And then it goes away when you know Santa Claus isn’t real and get too big to dress up like Cinderella. But if I could ask for one last wish, before all the magic goes away, then this is what I wish for: I just want to freeze this one day, a day when we are all just a regular family, a family together on vacation and we’re happy.
Fashion Note:
The sneakers that Anne wears on the Disneyland trip are the L.A. Gear Star Dust style, which were modelled by Priscilla Presley when they were released in 1989-1990. UCB stands for United Colors of Benetton, which started a rather controversial ad campaign in 1989 that tried to tout inclusivity through racially diverse models and tackling hot-button issues like AIDS, the environment etc. But to the preteen set, the fact that Benetton was stylish was more important than its attempt to appropriate social topics as a marketing gambit.
Aviation Notes:
JFK-NRT is definitely a factual 747 route that was operated by Pan Am since the 1970s with Boeing 747SP aircraft. December 1985 was likely around the last time that anyone could get on a Pan Am on that route as Pan Am had agreed to sell its Pacific routes to United in April 1985 and sealed the deal the following year. I was worried about creating an anachronism here, but seems like I might have just gotten in under the wire.
Delta Airlines operated the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar on a range of medium- and long-haul routes; ATL-LAX is one of the actual routes that they operated. Given that I’ve set the Elliots in Detroit, it makes sense that they’d probably need to transit through a hub to go to LAX, no matter which carrier they chose to fly with. Also, both the DC-10 and TriStar had three engines and were quite similar in size, so people often mixed them up although they’re both different aircraft produced by different manufacturers.
Part I - Chapter 2 (Anne)
September 1990, Buffalo, NY
Guess what? Liz doesn’t have to be embarrassed by Mary or me anymore, because she’s going to stay here at boarding school. In a
seminary
– isn’t that romantic? Kind of like those rich young ladies in the old days, except the girls here are wearing Guess and Moschino instead of those big puffy dresses they used to have a hundred years ago. But she’ll still be living in an old house full of girls, just like the illustrations in
A Little Princess
. Except Liz is more of a Lavinia than a Sara, I guess.
It takes two trips in our rented limo to fetch everything Liz brought from home to her new room. The twin room she’s got is pretty good sized – almost as big as what she has at home – but she has to share it with a roommate, so we need to bring half of her clothes back with us. She nearly goes ballistic when she realizes this, and starts turning all her bags inside out, dumping clothing in a pile on the twin bed and pulling out a skirt here, a sweater there, posing in front of the mirror before she decides whether to put it in the closet or toss it in the pile on the floor. If she goes on like this, we’ll be here forever.
“Elizabeth, honey,” coaxes Grandma. “Here, I’ve opened your biggest suitcase on the floor so you can put all the clothes you don’t want in there. We need to start making your bed, or there won’t be time to get your room set up before we have to go.”
“I
hate
this place!” Liz flips her hair and stomps her foot. “Why do you have to leave me out here in the boondocks where there’s nowhere to go shopping and I have to share a room and a bathroom – that’s so
gross
– and the bed’s so small – can’t you just bring me back home?”
“And have you go to public school? Young lady, your conduct here is hardly befitting of an Elliot.” This is the first time I’ve ever seen Father getting mad with Liz; usually, she’s the apple of his eye and can do no wrong. “You will not throw away all the advantages that we’ve given you. Don’t you know you’re going to one of the top prep schools for girls in this country? It’s a chance for you to meet other girls from the best families in the East Coast. Elizabeth Elliot, you are going to stay here, and make connections that will benefit you for a lifetime, and there will be no more arguments about this.”
Liz petulantly kicks the suitcase, before she starts pulling the clothes off the bed and stuffing them randomly into the drawers or the case. I start helping too, picking out the things I know are her favourites and putting them on hangers. Still, it takes ages to clear all her stuff before we can start getting her bed sheets on.
“Omigosh!” A voice squeals, and it’s a girl around Liz’s age with thick wavy brown hair, big eyes framed with lashes that have just got to be fake, and bright red lipstick. Her parents are following right behind, pulling two big suitcases. “So – we’re gonna be
roommates
! SEM is just going to be the best – aren’t you looking forward to meeting all the prep school boys? The sophomores and juniors, of course, freshmen are just babies. By the way - I’m Mariah. Mariah Crawford. And you are?”
“You mean – your name is Mariah, like Mariah Carey? That’s such a cool name! I’m Elizabeth Elliot. You can call me Liz.” Out of nowhere, Liz’s pout turns into a smile, and she turns on the charm like a faucet. “It’s so nice to meet you! Say, d’you think they’ll bring us shopping in NYC sometime?”
Mariah shrugs. “I dunno about NYC, but anyways. There’s a lot of fun stuff you can do here without parents! Hey - are those sunglasses Gucci, or Chanel? Can I try them on?”
And from there, they’re thick as thieves, going through all their clothes and planning what they’ll borrow from each other. I wonder if Father and Grandma can take me to the Niagara Falls, now that Liz probably can’t wait to get rid of us. And I’m not surprised if deep down inside she always did, ‘cause we’ve got so many people at home watching over us – Grandma and our au pair and Mary’s nanny and our two maids and chauffeur – so sometimes, I wish I could have a space to just be myself too. Well, in two years I’ll be coming here; I just hope my roommate won’t be a carbon copy of Liz and Mariah Crawford is all. Please, just let me have someone like me to room with when I get here, and I’ll be happy for life.
Of course, there isn’t time to visit the Niagara Falls after we’re done dropping off Liz, but Grandma asks if I want to trade rooms with Liz after we get home.
“Anne, you’re growing up, hon,” she says. “Soon, you’ll be a teenager; time flies, doesn’t it? Now that Elizabeth isn’t going to be at home most of the time, maybe you could move to her room, and she could use yours when she’s back for vacation. If you take Elizabeth’s room, you’ll have a bigger bed and more stylish décor. And I trust you to use the TV and LD player wisely and responsibly.”
“Thanks, Grandma, but no thanks. I love my room, and she’ll probably want hers when she’s back too.” It isn’t hard for me to make the decision; how could I possibly part with the blue sky and white clouds Mom painted specially for me? Liz’s room doesn’t have a sky, only purple walls, ‘cause even at age three she was a teenager already. I love everything about my room, and I’ll tell you all about it right now.
Well, my very favourite part of my room after the blue sky is my bookshelf, with a giant lilac purple armchair next to it, where I sit and read for hours and hours. These days, I’m not into kiddie books anymore; I got through the
Sweet Valley High
series and
Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret
last year in sixth grade, and this year I’ll try
Pride and Prejudice
and
Jane Eyre
. Grandma says
Pride and Prejudice
is the book every girl has to read, ‘cause Mr. Darcy is the perfect gentleman. But I don’t know if I want to think about gentlemen, when all I want is for the cool girls in my class to ask me along when they have parties or go to the movies or for Earthquakes at Swensen’s. It’d be fun, to go somewhere with just a bunch of other girls and not have grown-ups poking around all the time.
Then there’s my bed, which I picked out from one of Grandma’s magazines when I was five. It’s a shiny brass four-poster, with rainbow-colored curtains you can see right through, and candy-coloured stripes on the bedspread and bed ruffle. I never thought about wanting to be a princess, but I always wanted my room to look like fairyland. The walls are cotton-candy pink, of course, with white polka dots. And there’s a shaggy white rug on the floor, so warm and cosy to burrow my toes into.
Of course, if Liz talked about her room she’d go on and on about where she stores her clothes. I have a big dresser painted all in white with brass handles on the six deep drawers and a curly wood frame around the mirror and a built-in wardrobe with flat white doors, which isn’t a walk-in like Liz’s but then, I don’t need all that space when I never did any pageants. Liz goes for labels in clothing, but I go for colours. Where she has Guess, Moschino, Versace and Calvin Klein in her wardrobe, I have Esprit, Benetton and Cacharel.
Last of all, there’s the desk where I do my homework, a little vintage one painted white, with curved legs and little cubbies for my stationery. Just like all the other girls at school, I love coloured jelly-ink pens, but no matter how I try, my handwriting is neat but not cute and artistic like theirs. Back when I was in the Lower School, the cubbies used to have all my character erasers too – Hello Kitty and My Melody and Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Brite – but I’ve hidden all of them in a box now, though I’ve still kept them. I just like to keep old stuff like that, to remember with. It’s a nice little corner for studying I guess, but I prefer to lie on my bed with my books, either leaning back against my mountain of pillows, or sprawling flat on my stomach with an open book in front of me, with all the curtains pulled shut. That way, it’s just me and my own world, all the way from the end of school till dinnertime.
Fall 1990
I’m done reading
Pride and Prejudice
now, and some of the girls in my seventh-grade class have read it too. Just about everybody loves Mr. Darcy, or maybe I should say, everybody loves rich, tall and handsome men – one of the good things about having an au pair is they take you to all the cool movies, so even though the popular girls don’t ask me along, I’ve still seen all the shows they’ve seen anyway. We’ve watched
Ghost
, and
Pretty Woman
, and
Days of Thunder
, and we’ll be going to see
Dances with Wolves
next. Mary comes with us, even though she’s only eight and in third grade, and even she knows how to stop whining when there’s handsome film stars to look at.
And I don’t know if it’s because everybody loves Mr. Darcy or if I really like him, but pretty soon I start thinking he’s the perfect gentleman too. Not during the times when he’s acting hoity-toity, but during the time when he saw Elizabeth at Pemberley and he learned to smile for her sake. And the time when he went and made Wickham do the right thing for Lydia, even when he didn’t know if Elizabeth would like him back for it! That was the one that took the cake for me. If only there was a man – tall and young and handsome and smart and serious – and I could actually see him, touch him and talk to him – I know I could never be his girlfriend, because he’d go for girls like Liz, but maybe, just maybe, I could be somebody like Georgiana. Yes – that’s it, I wish I had a big brother like Mr. Darcy to keep me company and listen to me telling him all kinds of funny stories, and who would stand up for me and protect me.
But I know the other girls don’t dream about being Mr. Darcy’s Georgiana, they all want to be Elizabeth, and why won’t they? It’s interesting that most of them probably look like Caroline Bingley instead, though they say they want to be Elizabeth and Jane. ‘Cause I bet if Elizabeth Bennet was twelve years old in 1990, she wouldn’t be wearing push-up bras, halter neck tops and skin-tight Guess jeans. Then, what would she wear? Short sleeved, fluttery summer dresses? Levi’s with one of those oversize long-sleeved paisley shirts like the one from Guess that Liz handed down to me? Turtleneck sweaters with tights and plaid miniskirts? I have absolutely no idea, ‘cause I know nobody, not even me, thinks I could be an Elizabeth Bennet in any way. Back to the point – I might not think I can attract a man like Mr. Darcy, but everybody else in my class wants to. Or not specifically Mr. Darcy – but any handsome man no matter what the colour of his hair might be. Now that everybody watched
Ghost
last summer, the class joke, at least for the popular girls, is to sing
Unchained Melody
, only you can’t just sing it, you have to wail it at the top of your voice drawing out all the words as long as you can. Like this:
“Oh, my-y-y lo-ove, my da-ar-li-ing, I’ve
hun
-gered
for
your-or-or tou-uch! A
long
, lone-ly
time
…”
Yuck. Just, yuck. But that’s what all the popular girls are doing, and if it isn’t that song, the other one is Extreme’s
More Than Words
, because there’s girls in my class who think Nuno Bettencourt is, in their words, “yummy”. They’ll shriek “Nu-no! Nu-no!” and they’ll croon that song, all the way to the “La di da di da, di da di da, more tha-an words” in voices as syrupy as treacle. All of it just gives me goosebumps, so maybe that’s why they never invited me to join them. And I can’t really explain why I still want them to invite me anyway.
Fall 1991
When I ask Grandma to get me
War and Peace
, she wonders whether I’ve gone off my rocker.
“Anne, that’s probably the thickest book there ever was, and it’s hard even for college students. We all know you’re smart without you having to go all out to prove it, so surely there are other things you want to read that won’t be so hard on you?”
“Grandma, I’m not reading it to prove anything,” I protest. “I just read this little bit from it in my book about nursing stories, where the prince is injured and he meets Natasha again, and I want to see if they’ll get together. I want to know their story before and after he gets hurt and find out about their ending. Please, can I read their story?” What I don’t say, is that I’ve read
Pride and Prejudice
about twenty times already and I want more stories about tall handsome men like Mr. Darcy. And so, the only reason why I want
War and Peace
is to read a romantic story about a tall, handsome prince and the girl he loves.
“Well, dear, just be prepared,” replies Grandma. “When you start getting into adult books, not every story is going to have a happy ending. Because life is always happy when you’re a child, but when you grow up, you’ll find that the world has a lot of sadness too. I don’t know if you’re ready for that yet, but please don’t be too disappointed if you find it’s sadder than you expected.”
“Does that mean they don’t have a happy ending?” I ask.
“She does,” is Grandma’s cryptic reply.
The idea of being Natasha turns out to be even more untouchable to me than being Elizabeth Bennet. At least, Elizabeth is twenty, and it’ll be forever before I get to that age; but I’m already thirteen, and Natasha turns thirteen at the beginning of the book. She is a graceful girl with skinny arms who likes to dance, and I think I know exactly how she looks already, because we just had auditions for a dance extravaganza performance and that’s what all the girls who got in look like. It’ll be a medley of different types of dances – ballet and tap and jazz – and I was really dying to get in, but I’m short, stubby and clumsy so of course I didn’t make the cut. And so, there is absolutely no way I could be Natasha and have a prince fall in love with me.
Practices are on Wednesdays, and there are only one or two other girls other than me heading straight home after class. The dance show doesn’t have many boys in it, so when I walk out to the car, Charles Musgrove is also there, getting into his mom’s Toyota Camry.
“Hey, Anne,” he calls out. “Want to come over to my house instead? I could show you the new car we have at the garage, and we could play Super Mario for a bit, if you’d like. Just tell your chauffeur to go straight home, we’ll give you a ride back to your house after.”
Charles and I used to hang out at his home two days a week after school when we were in the Lower School, but once we got to sixth grade, it just got weird for boys and girls to hang out together. That’s when it became cool for boys to just hang out with boys and groups of girls to go out together, and if anyone ever crossed that divide, it meant you were dating. Charles and me, we were friends – but mostly, I loved to be at his house because I wished I had a mom like his mom. All these years, she’s changed her car many times, but every single one of them had the same bumper sticker, saying “Mom-Mobile” on it. She was always making something delicious in the kitchen, and unlike at my home, she’d actually let me help her out. Of course, Grandma never goes into the kitchen either – that’s why we have two maids at home. And we’re not allowed to do anything that might mess up our clothes. But Charles let me change into his old play clothes whenever I hung out with him after school at his home and his parents’ repair garage, so I could get messy with cookie batter and car grease, and Father and Grandma didn’t have to be any the wiser.
I must be sending out obvious low vibes on Wednesday afternoons, because Charles decides he’ll have me over whenever there’s dance practice, and we fix it up that I go home with him and his mom instead of my chauffeur those days. Mostly, we hang out doing stuff he likes – playing Super Mario and Pac-Man on his Nintendo, having his dad point out stuff to us that he’s doing to the cars in the repair garage, and watching
Coach
and its reruns. I try suggesting we watch
Full House
instead, but he isn’t interested so if I get tired of doing boy stuff, I just hang around with his mom in the kitchen. All of this still beats flopping around in my room thinking about the dance show, so I don’t mind; and it does make me feel a little better about not getting into the dance thing.
When the rest of our class catches on that we’re hanging out after school, they start making twittering noises and calling us “the lovebirds”, and they sing
Unchained Melody
at us when we head to Mrs. Musgrove’s car together after class ends. Charles and I know we’re not really dating, though; and he doesn’t know how to be mortified when he’s always been both chubby and runty at the same time, so everybody liked to make fun of him right from the first day of Pre-K. I try to avoid it all by bringing a book to school so I can sit alone during recess, and also pretend to be reading at pick-up time till his mom pulls up and I make a mad dash into her car. When we’re together on our own, without the rest of the kids in our class watching, it’s like old times again, which means it’s easy to talk and do stuff together though I don’t feel all that excited about hanging out with him. And I wonder, is this what it means to have a boyfriend and get married? It’s easy, it’s comfortable, but it isn’t exciting at all.
I get done with
War and Peace
in record time because I’m reading it all the time before class, during recess, while waiting for Charles’ mom, and in my room after school. Of course, I’m not really reading everything, only skipping to the parts that have Prince Andrei and Natasha in them. And I love them together almost more than I love Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. At least, that’s the case till I get to the part where he dies; and then I don’t want to read any more. Grandma has the video tape of the old movie with Audrey Hepburn and Mel Farrer, and when I tell her I’m sad because Natasha and the Prince don’t have a happy ending, we watch it together and I see that Natasha marries Pierre in the end. Henry Fonda is Pierre in the movie, and he’s really good-looking even if he is a little nerdy; but in the book, Pierre is supposed to be this big fat clumsy guy. So, I wonder if this is how all the adult books end, that princesses don’t find their Prince Charming, and whatever Charles and I are, even though I don’t think we really are boyfriend and girlfriend, is as good as it’ll ever get.
And then this year, we have Mrs. Frances Beale for English. She’s notorious for match-making her eighth graders through literature; in spring semester of eighth grade, she makes every class read
Romeo and Juliet
, and her excuse is that we’ll have to learn Shakespeare when we rise into the Upper School, so she’s getting us ready in advance. But we all know she’s actually having a ton of fun matching the boys and girls to read the parts. And then, she always makes her eighth graders do the play at the end of the school year, and the biggest highlight for her is picking the Romeo and Juliet who’ll perform in front of all our parents.
It's Cheyenne Lucas who ends up doing me in; she’s the track and field star in our grade and wears her hair cropped and spiky with bright golden highlights, and whenever it’s warm enough to go without a sweater, she’ll show off her tanned shoulders in her cross-back athletic tops. Everybody trusts her because she always says it like it is and comes straight to the point, so she’s always been the unofficial leader of our class. And she likes it too – she’s the one who collects everyone’s addresses, phone numbers and birthdays, and makes sure everyone gets a class birthday card and a class Valentine every single year.
“Mrs. Beale, I think Anne Elliot should be our Juliet this year,” she says. “Reason number one: she’s the next one of us to turn fourteen, so she’s the closest to Juliet, age-wise. Reason number two: she’s got a nanny who drops her off and picks her up at school, just like Juliet has a nurse. And reason number three: she’s got her own Romeo already – we all know she and Charles Musgrove have been sweet on each other ever since we were all in preschool. You like us to read our lines with feeling, and since she knows what it’s like, she’ll do the best job of all of us.”
Great. Wonderful. With Mrs. Beale enthusiastically nodding and agreeing, there’s no time for me to think of anything to say, and no polite way for me to back out of it either. Charles shrinks visibly in his seat when she looks at him, and after a long pause where she scans the entire classroom up and down a few times, she finally declares, “Thank you for your great suggestion, Cheyenne. I have absolutely no doubt Anne Elliot would be perfect as Juliet, but perhaps she needs another Romeo. And so, our Romeo shall be… drum roll, please… John Willoughby!”
I should’ve known Mrs. Beale always goes for looks – John Willoughby’s the boy who looks the most like Romeo with his tumble-head of chocolate-brown curls, but otherwise, he’s probably the ickiest boy in our class. He’s kissed half the sixth-grade girls already and gives every girl in our class a single red rose for Valentine’s every year. I don’t have to worry about John becoming my Romeo for real when he never dates any girls in the same grade as us, and after the practice sessions for our dialogues, which conveniently happen at the same time when most of the other girls in our grade are practicing dance, his girlfriend Marianne, who’s in seventh grade, will always be already there waiting for him, and they’ll disappear off together right after we wrap up.
Having to act
Romeo and Juliet
with John Willoughby gets me thinking about Mr. Darcy and Prince Andrei all over again. If I close my eyes and count to five before I say my lines, and pretend I’m saying them to Mr. Darcy or Prince Andrei and not to John, and think about channelling Unchained Melody the way the girls sang it all year last year –
“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father, and refuse thy name.
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet”
In my head, I’m not Juliet when I say the lines, and I’m not speaking to Romeo either. Neither am I speaking to John Willoughby, and for all I know he might as well not be there at all. Instead, I’m finally Elizabeth Bennet at last, and she’s accepting Mr. Darcy’s second proposal.
“PERFECT!” Mrs. Beale squeals, her screechy voice interrupting all our flow. “AMAZING! That was the way to do it – if you just keep it up and do it like that every time, there’ll never be a single man in want of a wife again. Now, let’s take it again – all the way from the top.”
In the same way Charles and I brought the house down by playing Fievel and Tanya when we were in the Lower School, John and I bring the house down by playing Romeo and Juliet, now that we’re finishing up with Middle School. My costume, an empire-waist dress in burgundy velvet trimmed with gold braid, is just as beautiful as any of Liz’s pageant dresses, and Grandma tells me we got another standing ovation. What nobody knows is that to get to where we were that night, John and I spent hours upon hours acting at each other; we walked into practice, said our lines, and then went our separate ways, him going off arm-in-arm with Marianne, and me walking alone to my chauffeur’s waiting car. I don’t know whether he was saying his lines to Marianne, or if it was natural for him to talk like Romeo to every girl in our school; just as he had no reason to know that I was saying all of mine to an imaginary Mr. Darcy. Yet, somehow or other, we managed to convince all the parents that we were the perfect Romeo and Juliet. Isn’t that funny?
It’s summer now, and there’s a couple weeks after school’s out before I go to camp in the Adirondacks. That was Father’s idea: he said I needed to get used to living away from home now that I’ll be joining Liz at SEM in the fall. While our au pair packs my trunks, I bring out
Pride and Prejudice
to read again one last time, because after the whole
Romeo and Juliet
thing, I’m totally fed up with all the sad love stories, and I just want Mr. Darcy all over again.
After so many months of pretending to say my lines to Mr. Darcy, I’ve got to put a face to him; over the last two years, I’ve been putting up movie posters on all the walls in my room, covering the pink-and-white polka-dot wallpaper with the clashing colours of
Top Gun
and
My Own Private Idaho
and
Far and Away
and
Father of the Bride
. Because Tom Cruise is dark-haired and handsome, he’s mostly the Mr. Darcy of my imagination; even though he’s only around five foot seven or so, I’m five foot two on a good day (meaning, when I’ve snuck out in my mom’s old kitten heels) and therefore, that’s plenty for me. And lately, I’ve been thinking that Frankie Valli’s profile on the album cover of
Closeup
could be a Darcy too; I have the album with me, looking at his picture as I thumb through the book one more time.
“Anne! Yoo – hoo!” It’s Liz, home from SEM for the summer. “Grandma wants to play Mom’s old records, have you seen
Closeup
around the house anytime lately?”
“Coming!” I burst out of my room, and run out to the upstairs family room with
Closeup
in one hand, and
Pride and Prejudice
in the other. “Grandma, sorry I borrowed it for a little while. Here you go.”
It doesn’t occur to me to hide
Pride and Prejudice
, and Liz catches on in an instant. “Waitaminit. Are you thinking – don’t tell me, did you think Frankie Valli is Mr. D-Darcy? That’s hilarious!” She cracks up and doubles over with hysterical laughter.
“Why? What’s so funny?” I know Liz knows way more than I do about men, but Frankie Valli fits the bill, right? Dark hair. Handsome. Romantic. And nobody cares if he’s tall, if all you can see in that picture is his face.
“Well, I guess you’re only fourteen, so maybe you can’t tell the difference.” Liz dabs at her eyes with a Kleenex as she gets her laughter under control again and starts to explain, a world-weary tone creeping into her voice. “Frankie Valli is an Italian. He’s a Latin lover. Not an Englishman with a stiff upper lip.”
We stare at each other for a while – Liz and Grandma and me – and then we all practically fall over each other laughing at the same time, but maybe all at different things. Liz probably still thinks it’s funny about Frankie Valli being Mr. Darcy, and I think it’s funny that Liz is talking about Latin lovers. And who knows what Grandma is thinking about all of this?
When we finally stop laughing, gathered as we are around Grandma’s old gramophone player, she smiles at us kindly. “Well, I guess the next time we go to Blockbuster, I’ll have to see if they have
Pride and Prejudice
for rent. They made a movie about it, you know, with Laurence Olivier. Then, you’ll know what Mr. Darcy looks like.”
Posted on 2022-03-06
Part I - Chapter 3
Fall 1993, Buffalo, New York
It took coming to a tiny corner of upstate New York, six hours away from the Big Apple, and living in a world of only girls to finally set me free. This isn’t the first time I went far away from home, for Father and Grandma had brought us on vacations to Europe and Asia since we were very little – but it is the first time I can make choices without someone from home watching over me.
Before this, my everyday life was a circle of being shuttled from home to school and sometimes to Charles’ house; and then weekends and holidays were planned by Father or Grandma or our au pair. Where we shopped, what movies we watched, the places we’d go to for holidays – all of these were choreographed to a fault, and I simply went along with whatever had been decided by my minders. It did not even occur to me to feel trapped, for I had known nothing else. Being two years older than me, Liz had always been my yardstick for all that a girl ought to be, for she had been virtually crafted in Father’s image and he doted on her alone. After Mary was born, our nanny could no longer handle all three of us; since then, there were a string of au pairs minding only Liz in the beginning, and then taking me on as well when I started school, for Mary was such a handful when she was a toddler that it took all of one nanny and then some to look after her. Our au pairs were like a rotating cast of surrogate big sisters, flipping through magazines with us to pick out clothing styles so Grandma would know how to shop for us, taking us to all the new movies that were “in” at the moment, and going through the Billboard Hot 100 with us every week on the radio. Grandma was the one who stocked my bookshelf, because I was the only one who would sit quietly and listen as she read increasingly longer bedtime stories to us, going through three bedrooms every night chasing our staggered bedtimes. Whereas my sisters would interrupt her and keep asking for stuff, using story time only as a tactic to delay going to sleep, I actually enjoyed her stories and asked to read along with her. So, she knew I was the only one who would treasure Mom’s old collection of children’s literature, and it all got shifted into my room. But it also meant that for the first twelve or thirteen years of my life, I didn’t even get to decide which books I got to read – I thought I was picking out my own books from my shelf, which seemed like an endless collection at the time, but actually, I had no idea that any books existed beyond what my shelf told me about.
Coming out to camp, and then to boarding school, my world has suddenly turned around. For the first time, I have choices. Even though my schedule is heavily structured, there are elective activities where it’s entirely up to me to pick whatever I want, instead of asking Father or Grandma to give me permission to do things. For the first time, I have variety. I’m not limited to the things our au pairs or Liz or Grandma would do, so I have the chance, and in fact there’s plenty of grown-ups who encourage me to do things I’ve never done before. Sailing, riding, pottery, community service, computer science, physics, hiking, and skiing – so many things I never thought about before leaving home are now available to me, and I’ve discovered that the world is much bigger and broader than the little slice my au pairs, Grandma and my childhood books showed to me. For the first time, I have responsibilities. I have to pitch in with cleaning up my cabin at camp and my dorm at school, keep track of my own things, and stay on top of my schedule without someone to remind me about tests, tryouts, sporting meets, and appointments. For the first time, I have little pockets of time to explore my world unsupervised. During weekends at SEM, we can go into town and do our own thing for a few hours, so I can go into stores and pick out clothing that Grandma would never have bought for me. And for the first time, there’s people who trust me enough to count on me for getting real stuff done. Near the end of my seven weeks at Raquette Lake Camp, my age group went on a 90-mile, 4-day canoe trip, where all of us had roles to play in keeping everyone together, staying safe, making steady progress along the lake, and taking care of all the group supplies. When he sent me off to camp and boarding school, Father only thought he was opening up opportunities for me to make friends with other girls from rich families all over the East Coast. Little did he know that in the process, he’s handed me the keys to explore the outside world on my own terms too.
And then, you’d be surprised at how liberating a world without boys can be. Back when I went to a school with both boys and girls, there were those spaces people just expected the boys to own – team sports, video games, science, and math, to name a few. And if you were a girl, you dreamed of doing all the things the cool girls did – wearing the right clothes, having pretty handwriting and artwork, getting your stories published in the school magazine, getting into dance shows, and being invited to parties on the weekends. But when everybody is a girl and our school has everything out there for us to do, there’s no more talk about what’s “boy stuff” or “girl stuff” anymore, it’s just all about experiencing the world out there. It also means everyone has a voice, and that means much more to me now that I’m old enough to have a proper answer when people ask me what I think about things. In the Lower School and Middle School back home, our teachers taught us like the children that we were. Always, the teacher had the correct answer, and our job was to remember stuff and get it right. There was no such thing as debate, and no room for us to express our own opinions. In any case, even if we’d had the freedom for discussions back in the Middle School, the boys made so much noise I bet they’d have hogged everybody’s air time. So now that we all are girls here at SEM, we are all here on equal footing and everybody gets to say what they think. That’s something I never had before, not only at school but also at home, where Father and Grandma always knew best.
Having a free run of the library on my own – both our enormous school library at SEM and the public library downtown – opens up entire worlds for me too. When I was living at home, the books Grandma put on my shelf were always about girlhood: I had children’s classics like
Little Women
,
The Secret Garden
,
What Katy Did
,
Anne of Green Gables
,
Pollyanna
,
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
and
A Little Princess
; the
Little House
series by Laura Ingalls Wilder; the
Ramona
and
Anastasia
series by Beverly Cleary and Lois Lowry respectively; St. Clare’s and Mallory Towers stories by Enid Blyton; the
Chalet School
series by Elinor Brent-Dyer, and
Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself
by Judy Blume. After I outgrew kiddie books and started looking for something more grown-up to read, she replaced those with Austen and Bronte and
Gone with the Wind
and Beverly Cleary’s teen books:
Fifteen
,
Jean and Johnny
,
The Luckiest Girl
and
Sister of the Bride
. She also stocked my bookshelf with tons of Judy Blume, which is how I learned about what to expect when girls grow up, because Grandma would have considered it vulgar to have The Talk with me directly. In the libraries of the world at large, though, there are many stories which are not about girlhood or romance or marriage – in freshman year here at SEM, I’ve lapped up
Of Mice and Men
,
To Kill a Mockingbird
,
Moby-Dick
,
Lord of the Flies
, and
Catcher in the Rye
already. Through these books I learned of a world that is not seen through rose-tinted glasses; where people don’t need to be good-looking, rich or white to have a voice and be heroes; that everybody has a mean streak in them, and that it is much easier to choose evil than good. And surprisingly, instead of making me sad, this knowledge has made me feel powerful. Because from then on, I’ve been able to look back at how we weren’t quite the perfect family at home and I might not be quite the perfect girl with the perfect life, but now I know that the world is messy and difficult and being a good person doesn’t necessarily mean all the good things will happen to you. Yet somehow, I’ll still get through it anyway just like so many other people have.
The summer after freshman year, Charles and I had our Level 1 driving licenses, and we were learning to drive together in the Chevy Impala that Charles’ parents had bought for him to learn with. Mrs. Musgrove was just like I’d always remembered her when I was home for freshman year winter break, but to everyone’s surprise, sometime during spring semester she learned that she was expecting another child, a younger sibling for Charles at last, and by the time it was June, she’d gotten so huge she couldn’t move around much. So, our chauffeur, Mr. Hill, was the one who taught both Charles and me to drive; he’d bring me up to the Musgroves’ house at St. Clair Shores whenever Father and Grandma didn’t need to use our car, and the three of us would get into the Impala and then hit the road. I’d picked up a map of metro Detroit from the bookstore, and it was really fun telling Mr. Hill which parts of town we wanted him to take us to. By the end of the summer, we’d explored every street of metro Detroit that was safe for us to go, and I felt great about being able to find my own way around town.
Charles had been an only child for so long that his mom having another kid had left him at a bit of a loose end all around, so now it was my turn to have him over at our house to hang out. There really wasn’t much to do around the house to entertain a boy – we still weren’t allowed into the kitchen; nobody had ever bought us Nintendo or Sega consoles because we’re all girls, so Charles had to get the CD-ROMs of his favourite games and install them on our computer; and even if he’d been into reading, none of the books on my old shelf would have been interesting to him. So, we did the best we could: we went into the basement entertainment room, where Father had upgraded his hi-fi, replacing the old unit with a huge new MacIntosh surround sound system and home cinema during the year while I was away. There’s now a brand new built-in cabinet from floor to ceiling filled to the brim with his CD collection, because apparently, he’s been on a shopping spree to buy the CD version of every single gramophone record that Grandma had kept from the times when Mom was alive, adding those to his already extensive CD collection. Thankfully, Grandma stopped him from throwing away the stack of Mom’s old records and brought them back to her house together with her old gramophone player to put away as keepsakes. That meant we had a decent time playing Father’s CDs, and dancing to the music together sometimes just for fun. We also went through Father’s entire stack of laser discs, watching everything from
Madame Butterfly
to
Kindergarten Cop
just because we were so bored. Although Charles is more into the light-hearted rom-com and action movies, I made him sit through
The Silence of the Lambs
,
Dead Poets Society
and
Scent of a Woman
– all the good movies that were too dark for our au pairs to take us to back when they were playing in theatres. Still, we were running out of stuff to do by August, and that’s why I am so happy now for fall term to start again, so I can come back to SEM and my world can grow bigger again.
This year, I’ll be rooming with Elise Barnett; our teachers make it a point to get to know everyone really well, so now that they’ve spent a whole year with us, they have a pretty good idea who’s going to get along with whom. We’re the “STEM girls” of our class – in the beginning, pretty much everybody thought they’d suck at math and science because it was boy stuff, but when we were actually forced to spend time on it even though we were girls, it turned out I was better at it than at writing and art. Elise was one of those girls who had never cared about what was for girls or for boys ever since she was a little kid, so she was good at all the boy stuff, like math and science and sports and hiking, all the way from the beginning. When we started out, she had to help me with my math homework, though after a couple months I caught up with her. And because we both like hiking and reading too, we ended up hanging out together whenever Liz didn’t pull me along to join her and her friends. We shopped at local thrift stores in Buffalo during weekends, went on all the outdoor activities arranged by SEM, and because Elise is full of joy and humour, so everyone thinks she’s cool, I also ended up in the cool crowd in my class by association. So now that we’ll be roommates, we won’t be short of people wanting to hang out with us in our dorm house.
And not long after term begins, Charles mails me something and everybody’s excited to see me getting mail from a boy. It’s a picture of Mrs. Musgrove seated on the generous couch in their living room, smiling from ear to ear, holding two baby girls swaddled in pink and purple blankets, one in each arm. There’s a banner in the background saying, “Welcome home, Henrietta and Louisa Musgrove”, and Charles and his dad are squished on the couch on each side of her. “I have two baby sisters now,” are the only words he wrote to me, scrawled on the back of the photo.
“Hmm,” says Elise. “That doesn’t really look like much of a love letter to me. But it’s really cute how he wrote you just to show you his new baby sisters.”
“Oh, Charles isn’t really my boyfriend,” I reply. “Just someone who’s been a really good friend since we were three, who also happens to be a boy. He’s always been almost like the brother I never had, though I don’t know if that’ll still be the same now that he’s got real sisters of his own.”
Summer 1994, Grosse Pointe, Michigan
If you ask Liz, turning sixteen would be all about being “sweet sixteen”, the prime age for getting attention from boys; but if you ask me, the two biggest things about being sixteen are the ones that that bring my freedom to an entirely new level: my Level 2 driving licence and being able to work. All my life before this, I’ve had to ask and wait for people to take me to places; but now, that’s all changed when Father has an Audi 80 sedan, which he bought two years ago when Liz turned sixteen, that can be all mine during the day because Liz only uses it at night. I just need to make a deal with Mr. Hill to make sure he takes Liz to the mall whenever she wants to go there, and I’m all on my own to roam free this summer.
Mrs. Musgrove’s been working mornings at the front desk at the main Musgrove garage for as long as Mr. Musgrove can remember; she’d drop off Charles at school, then take customer calls and check people in for their repairs from 9 am to 3 pm, and then she’d go off to pick Charles up, take him home and get dinner ready. Mr. Musgrove tells me she took six months off when Henrietta and Louisa were born, and then she’s put them into day care and started again. But since school is out for the summer, he hopes that Charles can help out and he can hire me, now that I’m sixteen, and if we can man the front desk between us during the summer, then they can take the twins out of day care for these few months and Mrs. Musgrove can have some quality time bonding with them at home.
Pretty soon, I’m the one who ends up doing most of the phone duty, because people like my voice and I’ve learned the art of getting people to calm down when they’re frustrated. No biggie, because that’s what we’ve had to do with Liz and Mary all my life. Charles does stuff like printing and filing papers, but he gets bored easily and often he wanders off to look at the cars and watch what the mechanics are doing. After work, I drive Charles home and drop in on Mrs. Musgrove and the babies for a bit. It’s me who gives Charles’ baby sisters their nicknames; at ten months old, they’re at the age when they zip around the house at warp speed on hands and knees and have figured out how to pull themselves up to stand hanging onto walls and furniture. Naturally, they’re getting into everything in the house and have to be pulled out from everywhere, but when I clap my hands and call out, “Het-ty! Lu-lu!” in a sing-song voice, they’ll always come. And so those names stick, till everyone forgets they had names that were too big for them in the first place. Of course, Father and Grandma think I’m just hanging around at the Musgroves’ house with Charles all day; they’ll never stand for it if they knew I was working for money, especially at the age of sixteen. But “Charles” usually is a magic word with them; I know Father’s been a business friend of Mr. Musgrove’s for the longest time, and they’ve always loved how well I get on with Charles. So, if I want to do anything, I just need to drag Charles’ name into it, and Father and Grandma will readily approve.
Mostly the Musgroves’ body shop gets fender benders, but one morning, they bring in a silver grey classic Mercedes that’s been smashed in full frontal impact; thankfully, the owner isn’t injured and he comes in with his car, practically blubbering because it’s been totalled. It’s one of those old ones where the doors pop up from the top of the roof, and ironically, they still work fine even with the front of the car all mangled and twisted. There isn’t anyone else in line, so I can leave my work station behind the counter and check the car out at closer range. The shininess of the chrome details, the slim and delicate steering wheel, the perfect complement to a lady’s hand in a cream-colored glove, in those halcyon days when ladies had hats and gloves and gentlemen had suits and bowlers, at least that’s how they were in Grandma’s old movies.
“They don’t make ‘em like that any more, what a pity,” says Mr. Musgrove. “Y’know, cars are so much safer these days, but then, that’s why they make ‘em all the same. Gullwing doors, that’s what they call these things” – he taps one of the doors that are hanging ajar, and I realize how descriptive that name is, for they’re bent just so, a silver seagull spreading its wings – “they can’t have ‘em, ‘cause in a crash, if your door hinges are on the roof, it could bring your whole roof down. Ah well. I dunno if we can save this one, but we’ll give it our best shot.”
Thankfully it isn’t a busy day, so I can come out between customers with a piece of letter-size blank white paper I filched from the photocopier and a borrowed pencil, and draw. I haven’t done this in years, not since I failed art in fifth grade, but for some reason I want to re-create this car as it might’ve looked during its glory days, with a silhouette of a genteel lady with her hair coiffed just so, her hand gently resting on the wheel. My sketch is just black and white in pencil, and I add on layer after layer of feathered lines and shadows all day, forgetting all about lunch break and ignoring Charles.
When the owner comes in just before we close the reception at 3 pm, Mr. Musgrove solemnly tells him the bad news. Nobody’s really surprised, because this car is so old we couldn’t possibly get parts to build an entire new engine and reconstruct the bonnet and front fascia from scratch, but his shoulders slump in dejection anyway.
“Excuse me, sir.” I feel a little shy about approaching him directly, but still gather up the courage to timidly tap his shoulder lightly and hand him my picture. “I drew your car, so you could have something to remember it with. And I know maybe I’m not all that good, but I did my very best, and I hope I did it justice.”
“
Not that good
? Young lady, you sure undersell yourself,” says the owner, a fifty-something man in a shirt and tie, in a booming voice. “Such details! Such realism! It’s a wonder nobody’s picked you up to be an artist, or a designer. Thank you – I will treasure this, all the rest of my life.”
“If I’m so good, then why was I almost failing art all the time in Lower School?” I ask Mrs. Musgrove when Charles and I get back from work. “I don’t think that guy was funning me, he sure didn’t sound like it, but I just can’t figure out how what he said could possibly be true.”
“Honey, why don’t you bring some of your old drawings out for us to look at tomorrow?” Mrs. Musgrove, the quintessential mom with the Mom-Mobile, which has now been upsized to a seven-seater minivan after the additions of Hetty and Lulu, always has all the mom answers I never get at home. “I kept all of Charles’ old artwork, you know. Let’s take a look at them and compare, and then I can tell you what I think.”
When we go through my old childhood art the next day, we find that even all the way back in second or third grade, I was already drawing in perspective. There were cars, lots of them, identifiable as BMWs or Mercedes-Benzes or Chevys or Pontiacs by their front grilles and logos. Because there were lots of cars, there were also plenty of roads, drawn with dotted divider lines and coloured in grey. Mostly the roads were flanked by buildings – houses, shop-fronts – and there were people walking down the sidewalks, usually families with lots of kids. Back then, all my people were facing sideways, because I only knew how to draw people in profile, and I was picky about making my people look real. The grades were marked in red on the reverse side of the paintings – most of them were C’s, with the occasional C+, and no A’s or B’s. Eventually in fifth grade, the C’s became D’s, but thankfully, they stopped making us do crayon pictures when we went up to Middle School, so that was the worst it ever got.
Mrs. Musgrove spreads all of Charles’ second- to fifth- grade artwork beside mine. I remember he did OK, generally getting B’s, and he’d always managed to get multicoloured smudges of crayon smeared all over his face and hands when he drew. Where I made lines in thin pencil, his were all drawn over with thick black crayon; everything was two-dimensional, but his colours were all graduated in multi-tone ombre patterns. Grass was two shades of green, alternating in slanted waves; cars were bright primary red or blue or yellow, not the muted shades of burgundy or navy or black or white or silver you see on actual cars on the roads. His people looked like stick figures, but they always had big round eyes and wide red smiles. The sky, filling up half the paper with multiple shades of blue, always had fluffy white clouds, and the grass always was strewn with red, pink, yellow and orange flowers. My paintings had lots of lines but not many colours, while his had all the colours but the lines and shapes were all very simple.
“Do you see the difference now?” Mrs. Musgrove kneels beside me as we contemplate the rows of artwork we’ve laid out on the kitchen floor, her arm draped across my shoulders. “Anne, hon, you painted like a grown-up, and Charles, bless his heart, he still painted like a kid back then. And the teachers expect a kid of eight or nine or ten to fill the page with colours, but you were so focused on capturing all the detail you saw on the streets that you never drew the sun or the sky. But just because you weren’t painting the kind of pictures your teachers expected, that doesn’t make you a bad artist at all. I dare say you probably were at least as good, if not a better artist than Charles back then, and you still are.”
After the incident with the gullwing Mercedes, Charles and I start shifting roles. Somehow, I end up being the one going around carrying tools to all the mechanics, while Charles takes over the front desk on top of doing the paperwork. One day, Mr. Musgrove stops next to me when he’s making his rounds and acknowledges me with a nod of approval.
“Anne, I’d thought all the gasoline has gone away from your family’s blood, until now,” he says. “I’m glad you’ve kept it going in the new generation.”
“Gasoline? In the Elliot blood?” I know vaguely that Father and Mr. Musgrove are friends, but I’ve never really thought much about how Father makes his money. “When was that? And how can that be, when I’ve never seen Father do anything with cars except sit in the back seat of them?”
“So, you don’t know how your family got rich, then? Well, the first generation of the Elliots was right there when they made the Model T Ford, making mechanical parts for cars. Here – come slide down with me right under here – see, all the parts that link all the way from the steering column to the wheels, like this. They’ve been selling original parts to the auto manufacturers, and then spare parts for repair and maintenance to garages like us – and that’s why your dad and I, we’re best buds for a reason. Our survival depends on each other.”
For the rest of the summer, Mr. Musgrove teaches me all kinds of things about cars – what all that stuff under the hood does; how the steering and braking mechanisms are all connected in the underbody of the car; and telling me about how computers and electronics are starting to take over automobiles. We talk about cars and safety, and how cars are getting chunkier and wider because side airbags have become standard and car body structures are now being built with special zones, so they’ll keep their shape where it’s needed to keep people safe, while absorbing the impact in a crash. And that’s when I realize that all of the work that goes into designing and making cars and their parts is extremely useful and helpful, because it saves people’s lives, so it makes the world better.
“What should I do to continue all this? All the work that Father’s company’s been doing?” I ask Mr. Musgrove.
“Well, you can start by doing engineering when you go to college. To work on autos, you’ll probably want to do mechanical engineering. And then you’ll come back out to your old man’s company, and they’ll teach you from there. And of course, I’d be happy to show you anything about cars – just pop over anytime you want.”
Winter 1994, New York City
Well one of the things that isn’t fun about being part of the Elliot family, is how Father and Grandma think it’s so important to show us off to everybody. Most people think “coming out” into society is one of those old things from
Pride and Prejudice
that went the way of the dodo in the twentieth century, but to Father, the International Debutante Ball in the Waldorf Astoria is The Big Thing each of us girls absolutely must do the winter of the first even year after we turn sixteen. Oh of course, Liz loved it; although Mary and I weren’t allowed inside the ballroom, Father filmed her spectacular Texas Dip curtsey on his Sony Camcorder, and I’ve been watching over and over how she dipped to the ground with her hands stretching out up and backwards like the wings of a swan, her white gloved hand clutching Cousin William’s in a feather-light touch as he bowed gracefully to one side to let her go all the way down. It’s such a lovely sight, if I didn’t have to think about how I’ll need to pull off such a move too; me, the klutz who’s been failing all the ballet auditions at school from ages eight through fourteen.
For years, we’ve been preparing for this – the ballroom dancing lessons Father made me do on weekends since I was five; the endless fittings for my lacy, strapless white dress which Father flew me back to Detroit for throughout this year; and of course, the task of picking my escort. Liz has had a crush on our third cousin, William Elliot, since forever, and he kindly obliged when Father asked him to escort her because he’ll do anything to make Father happy; but I’m scared of him when he’s so much older, and I’m sure he’ll laugh at me if I do anything dorky like tripping over my skirts or messing up my curtsey. Liz dragged me to mixers all through sophomore year to meet prep-school boys and find “The One”, but none of them wanted anything to do with mousy old me when they could have glamorous blond her. I never got past date number one with any of them, because Liz was always their date number two; in fact, sometimes they’d come up to me asking so sweetly and shyly for a dance that it’d melt my heart to oblige, only for them to drag me over to Liz and beg me for an introduction to her after just one number. It was so blatant that I was second fiddle to Liz all the time, no surprise though that was, that I couldn’t bring myself to get Liz to ask any of them for me.
“Oh, come on,” Liz had said. “Just tell me who you want, and I’ll make sure they do it for
my
sake – can’t you see, I’ve got all of them wound around my little finger? After all, it’s just a date, not a mate. All they have to do is keep you company and make you look good for one night, and then who cares what happens next?”
“Thanks Liz, but no thanks,” I’d replied. “That’s the point, they all think you’re the bee’s knees, and I’m just the geeky little sister they humour until they’ve got you. Nope – there’s got to be another way, and I’ll figure something out myself.”
And I do figure it out in the end – Charles has been my best friend all these years, and I can count on him to keep me from tripping, not to laugh at me if I mess up at anything, and to always have something to talk about all evening long. We’ve been doing dance class together since we were little kids and dancing for fun in Father’s rec room, and even though he’s still chubby-cute rather than handsome, that at least means we kind of match. Neither of us is going to be the next fashion model, but we’re comfortable with each other and he’ll always be on my side. So, I ask him to be my escort and he gallantly obliges, with Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove bringing the twins along with us for the trip to New York.
Still, I feel absolutely nervous about following in Liz’s footsteps; she was the last Michigan debutante, and I already feel jittery enough about everyone staring at me without having to think about what they thought of her the previous round.
“Now ladies and gentlemen, our debutante from Michigan!”
My heart gives a stir at the sound of the band playing
My Michigan
; it’s a melodious, gentle love song to our state, unlike the peppiness of
I Love New York
or the folksy sound of
The Eyes of Texas
. Liz might’ve wanted something flashier, but c’mon, this is our state song, and it’s an ode to our appreciation for our land and its natural beauty. As Charles walks me up the aisle arm in arm with a flag bearer carrying our state flag behind us, I realize it would have been so wrong to let Liz pair me up with a random prep-school boy instead of coming with him, because it would have made false this moment of the two of us being true Michiganders born and bred, representing our state. I try not to think about how much I’m indebted to Charles for being game enough to do this for me, or what all the girls from my old class before I went to SEM, all of whom are still his classmates, would say to him if they had any inkling of this. We mount the steps to the stage, me taking care to hitch my skirts up just a little so I won’t step on them, and then it’s time.
“And now from Michigan, we have Miss Anne Virginia Elliot, daughter of Mr. Walter Elliot and the late Mrs. Elizabeth Stevenson Elliot, Grosse Pointe, Michigan!” the emcee announces.
As the crowd breaks out into a polite cheer, I do a dainty little dip, sinking six inches or so into my cupcake-shaped skirts and crinolines, and then it’s over. At least, I don’t have to ever walk backwards; thank goodness I’m not living in the days when they presented ladies at court before the Queen, and they had to practically kneel down before her before retreating in reverse, because you couldn’t let the Queen see the back of you. By Anne Elliot standards, it doesn’t take much to make my debutante night a sort-of-success; my strapless corset bodice doesn’t fall off, I manage to make little steps so I don’t mess up the hem of my floor-length skirts or trip over, and my escorts are friendly and chivalrous to me all night, and I am content.
Every girl making her debut tonight has two escorts: a civilian escort, which means Charles for me, and a military escort who’s a cadet from one of the top military schools, namely West Point, the US Naval Academy, or the Citadel. I’m only sixteen and have no idea what to talk about to a college boy, so I’m really lucky that Richard Fitzwilliam, my military escort, is just like a nice and friendly big brother. He’s exactly the right height to not make me look short, and like Charles, he looks nice and down to earth, a real, approachable person, instead of being untouchably handsome. I ask him about why he chose to go to West Point, and he’s remarkably frank about his reply.
“Well, you’re a middle child too, so you probably have some idea about what it’s like to be the second son of the family. To get anybody to notice you at home, you’ve got to be a little bit of a rebel. And Uncle Sam forks out the dough for West Point, so I’m not costing my old man a single penny. Money talks, especially when I’m not the one who gets the family business and a baked-in path to riches from babyhood.”
Much as I wish I could be friends with Richard, I know I’m not going to see him again and that he won’t remember me after this night; he’s twenty-one, after all, a man of the world, and I’m just like any other high school junior when I’m not all made up and decked out in this crazy way.
After the night of the Cinderella Ball, Charles and I morph back into the high schoolers that we are – I trade that enormous white dress, bigger than some wedding dresses, for my red hooded duffel coat and blush-pink pom-pom beanie; and Charles ditches the tux for his varsity bomber jacket and plaid baseball cap with ear flaps. The day after the ball, we walk to FAO Schwarz together and go halvsies on getting the nine original Beanie Babies for Mary, as well as matching Simba plushies for the twins, and then the Super Car Lego Technic set for us to build when we get home. Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove take us out to Central Park while Liz, Father and Grandma go clothes shopping, and we ride the horse-drawn carriage, dandling a twin on each of our laps. That evening, Father and Grandma take us to see
Cats
on Broadway because I asked if we could; and I lose myself in the beauty of
Memory
, mouthing the words and wishing I could sing like Sarah Brightman. Finally, we wrap up our trip with New Year’s Eve, where we spend the day touring the city till we end up at Times Square where we watch the ball drop.
“Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one… HAPPY NEW YEAR 1995!!!”
We’re jumping around, shouting out the countdown, Charles and me; and at this moment, I feel much more alive, much more in my element than at my debutante presentation where I was a bundle of nerves. “Out” in society or not, what difference does it make, when at the end of the day, all I want is just to be a high school kid, having fun and living my life to the fullest?
Spring 1995, Buffalo, NY
After my big society “debut”, it’s back to reality – which for me, means going back to SEM and figuring out what my senior year capstone project will be. The whole idea of having us do this is so we learn who we are and what special superpower we’ll bring to make this world a better place. Oh and of course, because it’ll help us figure out what we want to do in college, too.
Ever since I was in sixth grade, there’s been one big question buzzing at the back of my mind: what keeps planes up in the air, and how can you stop plane crashes from happening? See, after that memorable ride we had in the TriStar when we went to Disneyland, the plane that wasn’t a DC-10, it wasn’t that long before I came across the word “DC-10” again, and not in a good way. That same fall, I was flipping through Grandma’s
Good Housekeeping
magazines like I often did to pick out clothes, and suddenly, an article caught my eye. It had a picture of a burned-out shell of part of an airplane lying in an open field, and another of a group of people, some of them injured, with little kids among them, sitting or lying on the grass waiting for help. As I read the article, I pictured myself and my family and all those families with kids on the plane, smashing down hard on the grass; for the way the survivors talked about the crash was so real, I could almost feel it myself. The plane that crashed was a DC-10, and the plane we were in was supposed to be a DC-10, too. How did we make it down safely when those people didn’t? Was there any way they could possibly have saved more passengers, or stopped the crash from happening? Why was there a plane called a DC-10, anyway, when all the planes I knew came from either Airbus or Boeing?
You don’t learn much more about anything when reading the same things over and over again, and so before long, I’d given up on being able to find out anything potentially useful about planes. Obviously, my bookshelf was useless for anything except girly story books, and the only books in our house with any kind of general knowledge in them were the Encyclopaedia Britannica volumes that Father kept on the top shelf of his study, mainly because they looked magnificent. I tried asking for permission once to take a look at what it had to say about airplanes, but after Father said, “Well, all right, as long as you don’t break anything”, I’d gotten scared climbing up the stepladder our maid brought into the study so I could reach the volumes. They were so heavy, I pulled at one of them with my fingers and freaked out that if I dropped it, everything else would come crashing down. And so, there wasn’t much I could do to find out anything about planes, all the way until now when we can finally search for stuff on the Internet. But hey, now we have a computer lab and a big library here, so maybe this is the right time for me to make it into my project and figure out something new, learning what I want to know about this question that’s been bugging me for years.
It feels like my life at SEM is just beginning – now that Liz has gone away to college, I don’t have to go with her to mixers anymore, and with the Debutante Ball being over and done with, all my weekends are completely my own, and I finally have all the freedom to do only the things I like to do. This year, I finally shot up some so I don’t look so stubby anymore; I’m now five foot four, and because I gained weight first and shot up later, I look a little leggier now and can run a little faster than I used to. Elise and I tried out for cross-country at the beginning of this year, and we’ve been going to meets together, running against other girls from Deerfield and Hotchkiss and all the other big prep schools. I love it when I’m out there running on the grass and the trails; even though there’s so many girls around, I somehow feel like it’s just me and nature together, and everything else fades into the distance as I get into the flow. Ever since the summer I spent at Raquette Lake two and a half years ago, I’ve always felt that being out on a trail, at one with the great outdoors, is the closest to heaven I could possibly get; and it’s a pity Father sent me only when I was starting to age out of camp, so I never had a chance to go back again. Now I’ve barely started to really come out into my own at SEM, yet pretty soon all our teachers will be talking to us about college and all. But one thing’s for sure – I’m starting to figure out who I am, and slowly, I’m getting more and more power and freedom to try new things and forge my own direction in life. Even though I don’t feel like I’ve had enough of SEM just yet, maybe there’s one good thing to look forward to about college – it’ll get me back to camp again, ‘cause then I’ll be old enough to get a summer job as a counsellor. Ever since I got out of home, every year it’s been getting better and better, unlocking more and more new things I can do.
Fall 1995, Buffalo, NY
The funny thing is, I love it that here at SEM we don’t have any boys, but yet I know college without boys is not what I want at all, not when I’m going to major in engineering. Father always wanted us to follow in Mom’s footsteps and go to Barnard; it’s been a tradition for a long line of Elliot women, both those who were born and those who married into the family, to attend women-only liberal arts colleges and come out with an Arts degree that would show their elegance and femininity, allowing them to marry well. But there’s no engineering major at Barnard or Wellesley, only natural sciences; and at Smith, there’s an interdisciplinary engineering science major, but I doubt I’ll be able to focus on getting deep into cars or planes if I go there. So even though I decide to apply to all three of them, just because it’s what Father and Grandma expect, I know I also want to try other colleges that have full engineering departments too. There shouldn’t be any barriers to girls becoming engineers, but the reality is that most engineers are still men. So, if I really want to learn engineering and do it well, I’ve got no choice but to learn it with boys. And we girls aren’t the little kids we used to be in middle school anymore, so I hope the boys have grown up too and gotten past making all the noise like they did back then.
“Well, based on your capstone project, it looks like you might end up going for aeronautical engineering,” says Mrs. Jane Churchill, our college counsellor. “At least, you’ll want to go someplace that offers you that option. And so, let’s see, there’s MIT, Stanford, Purdue, or Georgia Tech. And Ann Arbor for sure – you’ll definitely want to apply to at least one school in state, so you have a safety net where you’ve got a strong likelihood of getting in.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I reply. “I’m not sure what I’ll pick yet – aeronautical, or mechanical. It’s like, I guess I have a duty to carry on my father’s business and so maybe I should be getting into cars, you know? But I’m also learning a lot in my capstone on planes, and I could see myself spending my whole life doing this too. So maybe I should just try all the schools that have both, and then wait till junior year to figure things out.”
“That’s a pretty good idea,” Mrs. Churchill agrees. “It’s a joy to work with girls like you – you know your mind and have a clear sense of purpose. And because those two majors have many areas in common, it’s entirely possible for you to choose later, because they’ll share many prerequisites in freshman and sophomore year. So now, you have one more thing to think about. Is there any one school you want to go to more than the others? MIT and Stanford, especially, are highly competitive. Even with perfect grades and healthy extracurriculars, getting into either of those is a bit of a lottery even for the best of students. If you’ve got your heart set on either of those, you might want to think about applying early decision to get your best shot at getting in.”
“Early decision? What’s that?” For the umpteenth time, I’m so thankful I’m here at SEM, because with Father and Grandma having a one-track mind about Barnard and Wellesley and Smith, there wouldn’t be anyone to give me advice about engineering school if I’d gone into Upper School back at home.
“It’s when you apply to your top choice college in November, so they tell you in December if you’ve gotten in. There’s a catch 22 though – you’ve got to be really sure you want to go there, because if they say you got in, then you’ll have to go there and can’t back out. Think about it – and I’m always here for you to talk to me about your choices if you want.”
There isn’t that much time for me to narrow things down, because it’s September already and I need to send everything in by November. I start by eliminating Caltech, because aerospace there is a minor when it’s a major at Stanford. Actually, I don’t really care about going to a big-name college as long as it’s good at the majors I’ve picked, but I know it’ll be easier to convince Father if it’s a school that’s famous and easy for him to brag about. That probably means MIT or Stanford, because Georgia Tech and Purdue are great schools, but I doubt Father knows anything about them. Mrs. Churchill goes through the
U.S. News and World Report
college rankings with me, and we find that MIT’s top of the list for its aeronautical department, plus it’s closer to Detroit than Stanford, and so I’m all set.
The essay is a blank canvas for me to write my dreams: I talk about how I grew up in a family who’s forgotten that our livelihood comes from cars, so now it will be up to me to learn the skills to make sure our business can carry on for another generation. And yet, I write, I also yearn for the times when we travelled on holidays as a family in my childhood, when we could just be together without the pomp and circumstance that surrounded us at home with our maids, nannies, and chauffeur. And planes are a big part of how we travel, not just for my family but allowing many families around the world to get away and get closer to each other. I speak of how I don’t know exactly what I’ll do just yet – I want to do something useful after I finish college, but I can’t quite figure out if that will mean joining Father’s company to make safer parts for cars or working in the airplane industry to make travel safer for all the families who want to go on vacation. Whichever way it is, I know I’ll be grateful for all the opportunities they give me in college, and I wrap up the essay with the promise that I’ll use all the knowledge I’ll get to make this world a better place.
Posted on 2022-03-06
December 1995, Grosse Pointe, Michigan
Mrs. Churchill told me to have them send the packet to home instead of SEM, ‘cause early decision letters are mailed during winter break so kids can celebrate with their families, and she didn’t want me to miss mine. To my extreme surprise, one day our maid brings this fat envelope up to my room and hands it over to me, saying, “Package for you, Miss Anne”. It’s from MIT, and I realize that, contrary to all my expectations, I’ve gotten in. How on earth that happened, when Elise had to teach me algebra and trigonometry from scratch in ninth grade and I’ve never gotten gold in cross-country and nobody in this world really cares if you’re a debutante, is completely beyond me. But when I open the envelope and pull out the letter, there are handwritten, signed notes from three different people on the admissions committee at the top of it; they all said they loved my essay, and one of them, a lady, said she was proud of the initiative and righteousness I showed and believed that whichever path I choose in the end, I will be a credit to society. Looking at all the stuff they wrote makes me want to cry, because nobody ever thought my dreams were all that important before this, and yet these people, who get to read essays from all the smartest 18-year-olds in the world, thought that what I wrote was worth enough to them to let me in, in fact to even make the effort to write back to me about it.
Dinnertime is the one time when everybody in the house has to assemble together, so that’s naturally the time I choose to break my news. I certainly didn’t expect rampant joy, and would be thankful to escape a massive scolding, so when Father’s reaction is somewhere in the middle, I guess I’ve got to count my blessings.
“So, you won’t be giving Barnard a chance, then?” is the only response I get from Father, his face and voice as impassive as if I’d just asked him to pass the salt.
“I…” I guess I am trapped, because early decision means you can’t say no if you get in, though I never meant it that way and I wasn’t trying to kick out Barnard on purpose. I never really thought I’d get into MIT, so until I got that fat envelope in the mail, I’d believed all along that I’d be applying to Barnard in spring semester. “It’s the rules – I got in, early decision, and now I’ve gotta go. But if I didn’t, I would’ve still applied to Barnard in the spring. Honestly, I would, Father. Word of honour.”
“Anne, dear,” says Grandma, “what made you do that? What was it that made you think Barnard isn’t good enough, for you to apply to MIT early decision?”
“I – Barnard’s a good place,” I stammer. “But it doesn’t have the type of major I want to do. See, I know our family business is all about cars, and I – if I do engineering in college, maybe – maybe then I can come back and help – I’d be doing something useful.”
“That’s a good thought, honey, but you shouldn’t feel that the family’s future is all on you,” counters Grandma. “All three of you girls are very dear to me, and Anne, you most of all. Surely you know that. We’ve only ever wanted to give you a good life with no worries, and that means you should feel free to study something you truly enjoy, in a place where you can be safe, because you’ll be with other daughters of the top families in this country. You won’t have to worry about helping out and being useful, because you’ll find good men to marry, and that’ll mean you’ll always be well taken care of. We’ve worked so hard, all the generations that built up ELMSCO, because we want you young people to enjoy the privilege of being carefree.”
“But – engineering’s what I really like to do. And if I like it and it’s also useful, isn’t that a good thing?” I push on, hoping they’ll see my point.
“Anne, it’s no use,” cuts in Liz. “No matter how much boy stuff you do, it can’t turn you into a boy for real. And if you were really a boy instead of a girl, then Mom would still be here. But now there’s nothing you or I can do – Mom’s already gone and trying to be a boy won’t bring her back.” She bursts into tears and runs off to her room.
“Father – please excuse me, I guess I gotta go check on her,” I say hurriedly, then dash after Liz to her room. It’s all dark in there, except for the tiny patch of moonlight shining in from the window. She’s flopped on her bed face down, still crying with her face buried in the pillows, and I scootch in next to her lying cautiously on my side.
“Liz,” I tentatively put one hand on her shoulder. “Liz, I’m here. And I’m sorry if I upset you. But why did you say Mom would still be here if I was a boy? Please tell me, I really wanna know.”
Liz turns over and peers at me sideways; I can barely make out her red-rimmed eyes in the faint light. “Do you remember the night Mom died? Well, I guess you don’t, you were only four, but I do. I miss her.”
“I miss her, too,” I tell her. “Kinda. I know she painted the sky in my room, ‘cause Grandma told me. And if I try to remember all the way back, as far as I possibly can, I kinda know there was someone soft and warm who used to hold me, who sang lullabies and wished me sweet dreams. Maybe I don’t know for sure it was Mom, but I’d like to think so.”
“Well, I remember,” replies Liz. “I was six, and Mom was all excited about giving us a little brother. And so she went to the hospital, and Father was there but he wouldn’t let me go with him. You were asleep with your nanny, but I couldn’t sleep so I snuck down to the parlour and hid behind that big Chesterfield sofa to wait up for them. I don’t know what time it was when Father got back, but it was getting really cold down there and I was so tired, I almost fell asleep. But when he came back and Grandma opened the door, he – he was crying. And you know Father never cries. I didn’t really understand all the stuff they said, but I knew enough – he said, ‘She’s gone’, and ‘It’s a girl’, and ‘I wish we hadn’t decided to do this’. And Grandma was crying too, and she said she wished too that they hadn’t decided to do it, but they had done their best and maybe this was God’s will. And then we all had to dress in black, and Mom never came back. Mary almost died too, when she was a little baby she stayed in the hospital for a long time, and sometimes they took me to see her, and she was this tiny little red thing in a plastic box with all kinds of tubes sticking out of her. It was really scary, I thought Mary might die just like the way Mom did, and I always wondered if Father and Grandma would’ve thought it was all worthwhile if Mary had been a boy. And if we – if you or me, just one of us was a boy – then they wouldn’t have needed to try, and Mom would’ve still been here with us. But there’s nothing you can do, and nothing I can do neither – I’m stuck being a girl, so all I can do is to be Father’s best girl and be just like him.”
“Oh, Liz,” I scootch in a little nearer and wrap her in my arms. “I never knew, I had no idea. And I wish Mom could be here too. But it isn’t Mary’s fault she’s a girl, and we can’t help it either if we were all born girls. And maybe we can ask Grandma about it tomorrow, so we know what exactly happened for real. But I swear, honest – I’m not doing this engineering stuff to be like a boy, and I don’t wanna hurt anyone in our family, I wanna help make things better. I really do, honest.”
We end up crying ourselves to sleep in Liz’s room that night, and Grandma comes by to check in on us in the morning. “Girls,” she says, drawing the purple Austrian blinds all the way up to the top, “it’s getting late, you should get up and eat something. Do you want to talk to me about what’s upsetting you? Come along, go brush your teeth and then we’ll get some breakfast.”
“Grandma, is it our fault Mom died?” I ask over the fluffy hotcakes and maple syrup the kitchen prepared for us; Grandma probably told them to feed us up to make up for the dinner we missed last night. “Y’know, we all were so young we don’t remember much, but Liz heard Father say, way back then – he said, he wished they hadn’t tried ‘cause Mary turned out to be a girl?”
“Oh, honey,” sooths Grandma. “You shouldn’t ever think any of this was ever your fault, you poor dears. Back when Mary was born, this was 1982 – the ultrasound wasn’t as clever as it is these days, and many times they couldn’t tell if a baby was a boy or a girl, especially if they were all scrunched up or facing the wrong way. Your father and your mom, they always wanted a boy, but they also loved all of you girls, yes, your father loves you in his own way, even though he doesn’t know how to show it. You’re his flesh and blood, after all. But he’s always wanted a son and heir to take on the family business, because ELMSCO is a heavy responsibility, and he’d never want to burden any of you girls with a task that’s only fit for a man’s shoulders. So that’s why they never stopped trying, though your mom had a very difficult time with Mary and her morning sickness was worse that it ever was with either of you. The doctor said it was pre-eclampsia, and they warned us it may come to the point where we’d have to make that choice about whether to save your mom, or the baby. I talked to your mom, my dear Elizabeth, about it many times and she always said she knew she wanted to keep the baby, that she wanted to give it a chance at life. Of course, I was very worried for her, and I wanted her to change her mind, but she said she’d hope for the best. And that’s how she went – she never knew whether she had a boy or a girl, but I promised her I’d make sure you all had nothing but the best, no matter what may happen. And girls, she lives on in both of you – Elizabeth, you’re her namesake, and Anne, you’re the spitting image of her. So, you should both live your lives to your fullest, and that’ll make her so proud of you, because she’s looking down at you from heaven.”
Even though I know Grandma meant well when she said it, the thought of me carrying on Mom’s legacy by being the spitting image of her weighs hard on me. It makes me wonder, what would Mom have done if she was in my shoes, and how could I choose in a way that would honour her memory?
Well, I believe Mom was a person who strongly believed in love, and who fought for what was right. I think she was really brave to make sure Mary had a chance to live, even if it might mean she herself had to die. Grandma also said a lot of times that Mom loved Father very much, and she would’ve done anything she could to make him happy. But then what happens, when the thing that’s right and the thing that makes Father happy are two opposite things? I spend hours sitting at my desk all the rest of winter break, shuffling through the contents of that envelope and re-reading them over and over again, turning over the two choices in my head.
Eventually, on the last day before I go back to SEM, I knock on the door of Father’s study. “Father? Sir?” I say tentatively. “About the college thing – I really wanna do the right thing, and also I wanna do all I can to honour our family traditions. And I think I can do both, by accepting this early decision offer. Early decision is a promise, and I’d be letting our family name down if I backed out ‘cause that won’t be an honourable thing to do. But I can still be a good daughter to you – and make the Elliot family proud of me – if I can learn some useful stuff in college and then come back to help out. I mean, I don’t wanna take over the whole company or anything, just to help out and do something good for the family. Promise, I’ll do everything I can from now on to make you happy and proud.”
Father lifts his head just barely, so I can see his eyes over the
People
magazine he’s been holding up to read, his bent elbows propped up on the wooden arm rests of his leather desk chair. “As you wish,” he says, blandly and expressionlessly, and then he lowers his gaze, disappearing behind
People
again. That’s a clear signal that I’ve been dismissed, so I shuffle off to ink in and mail out my acceptance to MIT before I can change my mind.
January 1996, Buffalo, NY
A new version of
Pride and Prejudice
comes on air; they released it last year on BBC in the UK, but it took quite a few months before they show it on American TV. They show it for three nights on A&E channel, and Elise and I, together with the rest of our senior year friends and our house mom, watch it in the common room of our student house at SEM. Before this, I haven’t thought about Mr. Darcy for a long time already; by sophomore year, I was so busy with my STEM subjects and the Debutante Ball and cross-country and my summer job at the Musgrove garage that there hasn’t been much time to read fiction books these past two years. And anyway, we’re not twelve anymore; at going on eighteen, none of us are going to admit we’re swooning over pin-ups of Colin Firth publicly, even if that’s what we still do in secret sometimes. So, we’re all kinda like, well, that was nice, but then after that we move on and go right back to our college applications.
I guess part of the reason why
Pride and Prejudice
isn’t such a big deal anymore is, we’re all big enough not to go for fairy tales, and we all believe we can be the authors of our own destinies, now that college is the only thing anyone in senior year’s thinking about. I kinda feel like it’d be wonderful someday to love somebody and have him love me back, but I know that it’ll probably look more like what Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove are like, rather than like how Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet were. After all, the fairy tales all end when the prince sweeps the princess away, and nobody tells you about what happens next, in the decades after they marry and live their lives together. I trust that in the future, I’m going to meet lots of boys when I go to college and become a camp counselor and go out to work as an engineer, and someday I’ll find somebody to love, and he doesn’t have to be a prince, just somebody decent and honorable who cares for me and whom I can care for too. Somebody real and ordinary, a person I can actually touch and reach, not a mirage on a pin-up poster. Meanwhile for now, all I need to do is to focus on getting ready for college, so the rest of my life can unfold on its own.
Elise applied in the regular decision cycle for MIT; although she’s way more brilliant than I am, the reason why she didn’t want to apply early decision was because of financial aid. Her dad’s a docent at the Children’s Museum of Science and Technology in Albany where she grew up, so with five sisters in the family and a stay-at-home mom, her family income’s always been at the level where she needed scholarships, and that’s how she got to SEM. She wants to major in electrical and computer engineering, and she’s been tinkering around with circuits and coding ever since she was really little, using all kinds of odds and ends from old computers her dad kept in his garage for her to play with. MIT has these scholarship grants for people like her, which they don’t have to pay back. How nice; Father hasn’t said a thing about MIT since the day I went to his study to tell him I’d accept the early decision offer, and so I have no idea if he’ll agree to pay my tuition or not. Still, it doesn’t hurt to explore my options for financial aid, especially since we have Mrs. Churchill to help us, so I ask her about my options to pay for college on my own.
“Hmm… from what you tell me about your family, you’ll probably be over the limit to qualify for a needs-based grant, so maybe you can look at an unsubsidized loan,” she says. She then walks me through the various loan terms, and explains how interest works, and why it might make sense to take jobs on campus to pay down my interest while I’m still in school.
The paperwork needs me to estimate my family income, so I call Grandma, but she has no idea what it is, and she suggests I could reach out to Mr. Shepherd, our family financial advisor, to get the numbers instead. But she doesn’t know how to send out e-mail, so I have to call Mr. Shepherd’s office and send him the stuff to fill in from school. I don’t hear back from him for the longest time, until after some three weeks or so, Grandma calls me at SEM and tells me that Father has agreed to pay my tuition and fees. I heave a sigh of relief, but I don’t regret learning about how financial aid works and looking into campus jobs, because all of this will be useful practice to make my own way in the world if I need to.
Elise gets her acceptance letter in March, just like I expected all along, and her family drives up to Buffalo in their minivan to take her and me out to celebrate for a weekend. We both can drive now, so her dad rents a Chevy Cavalier for us since we can’t all fit into the van, and we stay overnight at the Niagara Falls. This vacation isn’t at all like the ones we have with Father and Grandma – we eat fast food instead of going to restaurants, and all of us need to squeeze into two motel rooms, so we have to share with her elder sister Jenna and her third sister Marilyn, while her two youngest sisters bunk in with their mom and dad. And her family is loud, lively and boisterous, not restrained like Grandma taught us to be, but they really love each other, and it shows. By the time they drop us both off back at SEM, I wish my family could be a little more like them, too.
It isn’t a big deal to not have a date for prom when you’re in an all-girls school; after all, there’ll be plenty of boys to meet in college, so it feels right to make prom into a night where we celebrate our sisterhood one last time before we fan out to different colleges all over the country. Elise has been designing and making her own dress, using the sewing machine in our fine arts studio and cutting up old theatre costumes for fabric. All these years, she’s never needed a stylist when she could be her own – she’s been cutting her own shoulder-length layered hair all the way through our years in high school. I think it’s a waste that I had that huge white dress made for just one night of the International Debutante Ball, but I’m still scared of getting into trouble if I let her cut it up and make it over, so instead, I’ve brought all my other cocktail dresses from those few days of events at the Waldorf to SEM this semester, and she makes over one of the others instead. Of course, there are a fair number of girls who already have boyfriends, as well as those who manage to finagle a once-off deal with a prep-school princeling, but I’m perfectly content to stand in a circle disco-dancing with Elise and other friends from our class and our dorm, reveling in the special bond we’ve built through living together these four years one more time.
Charles doesn’t seem to see prom the same way as I do, though; he emails me and asks me if I’ll be his date for the night. And since I owe him big time for being my debutante escort, I say yes; after all, I’ve got enough money saved up from two summers working at the Musgroves’ and my monthly allowance to pay for an air ticket to Detroit. When I tell Grandma, she tells me enthusiastically that she’ll pay for me to come back and have Mr. Hill come to the airport to get me. I’ve e-mailed Cheyenne on and off these past few years, so I know she’s not dating anybody; she likes to make these wry jokes that boys don’t see you as a girl when you can beat them on the track, and I think she’ll like to see some of my cross-country trophies even though they’re all minor ones and I never won gold the way she did. She’ll probably feel less lonely if she doesn’t have to go to prom alone, so I tell Charles I’ll hang out with her before prom to get ready together, and he can pick us both up from her house.
“Oh, Anne, how I wish I could be as lucky as you and Charles,” sighs Cheyenne, as I zip up her prom dress in the back. Unlike me, she could totally pull off a strapless tube dress and all the boys would turn their heads with shoulders like hers, but being her sensible, no-nonsense self, she’s still opted for spaghetti straps instead.
“Me and Charles?” I shrug and spread my arms palms up in a gesture of perplexity. “Cheyenne, what do you mean, lucky? Me and Charles are just like me and you; we came together in Pre-K when we were three, simply because our parents all decided to send us here instead of to public school, and that’s all there is to it. Could anything possibly be less romantic than that?”
“Well, who needs romance when they can have security?” comes Cheyenne’s reply. “Think about it, Anne. Charles has his daddy’s business waiting for him, and his mom and dad both love you to bits. And he’s always been so sweet to you, even though I know we were always half joking when we used to make fun of him being sweet on you. If you just hang on to him and treat him right, you know you’ll be nice and comfortable, and what more can a girl ask for?”
She’s got one thing right, for sure – Charles is sweet
to
me, but I’m not that sure I want Charles to be sweet
on
me. Just like the night when he escorted me at the Waldorf, his mom has taught him how to do all the right things – he’s brought a corsage each for Cheyenne and me to wear around our wrists and opens the doors of the Impala for us to get in, her in the rear and me in the front. Everybody kind of gasps when Charles and I get out of the car together, because our school – or rather, his school and my former school – goes from Pre-K3 to grade 12, and we’ve set a record for being the boy and girl who’ve been chummy for the longest time – all the way from the beginning right up to the very end. To me, buddies is all we are, though; except for the times when he’s dancing with me, we don’t hold hands the entire night, and we’d never thought of trying any of those things the other boys and girls who came in pairs are doing. At least, not until tonight. Deep into the night, the pairs start dropping out of the party, and he pulls me out of the building and over to a corner where several couples have already gotten the same idea, hiding in the shadows and making out.
“Should we, um, maybe, we could maybe try, y’know, like everybody else?” This is beyond awkward, but I guess, being prom dates and all, it’s our obligation to at least attempt to kiss. So even though I feel really blah about the whole thing, I guess it is sort of my duty to say yes, and we lean in and touch our lips to each other in a fumbling, hesitant way. We are not Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore from
Ghost
, definitely not Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle from
Pride and Prejudice
, but Macaulay Culkin and Anna Chlumsky from
My Girl
, except that we’re in twelfth grade, not sixth. Almost as quickly and awkwardly as we came together, we both figure this wasn’t a great idea and pull apart again.
“Sorry,” says Charles. “Um, I mean, that – never mind. Friends anyway? You won’t have to fly back till Sunday afternoon, so why don’t you come by tomorrow and hang out? My mom says she’ll bake your favourite double chocolate chip cookies, just for the occasion.”
“Sure,” I say. “Of course, I’ll stop by. Don’t be too shocked if Hetty and Lulu are more my speed now with Super Mario, though. I haven’t had a chance to practice for the longest time.”
Summer 1996, Long Island, NY
This summer, the last one before I head off to college, Father’s love affair with New York has superseded his wanderlust. Or rather, he has the opportunity for it to take precedence, because some distant acquaintances of his, whom I only know faintly as Madam Dalrymple and Miss Carteret, are renting a villa in southern France for the entire summer, and so Father is renting their summer home in Long Island for us to stay there. Ever since Liz and I established ourselves in the state of New York with her at Barnard and me at SEM, Father’s been obsessed with the lifestyles of blue-blooded New Yorkers like an itch he needs to scratch; instead of travelling far and wide like we used to, we’ve been spending more and more time hanging out in the Big Apple or going to the poshest upstate resorts. It’s almost like his way of keeping up with the Joneses; now that we’re supposedly making friends with all these girls from the richest East Coast families, he wants to show that he can live exactly like them too.
The house is on the very tip of Remsenburg, on sloping land overlooking the bay. It’s got its own swimming pool, so Liz is more than happy to lounge around on a pool float in her bikini all day, while Mary keeps bugging us to take her to the amusement park at Coney Island so she can ride the Ferris wheel. I manage to get a summer job at a candy store in East Moriches, and when Father and Grandma both throw up their hands in consternation, I just grin and say, “Well, how can a girl possibly say no to good candy? Besides, I get to meet everyone else my age on Long Island this way.”
Luckily, we came with all our cars, so as long as Liz is happy in the pool, I’m able to take the Audi every day to drive to work. Mr. Hill ends up driving everyone else downtown pretty often; I more or less know when they’ve gone to town, because Liz and Mary will be parading all the new clothes they bought. On a couple of my days off, I go with Grandma to the Guggenheim and to Moma, though most times I just like to hang out by the beach and let the sea breeze whip through my hair.
And then one hot, muggy night in July, it happens. We don’t actually see TWA800 go down, but as the news about it plays over and over on TV, I imagine how it must’ve been, a comet flaming out as it burst through the fading night sky. From the vantage point of the shop I work at, with a straight view down to the bay, I can see the Coast Guard and police crews at work, and a whole bunch of boaters all going there to gawk and stare. How those voyeurs can find entertainment out of other people’s misery, I don’t know; I walk down to the beach one day but keep a respectful distance from all the activity, scrunching my toes in the sand as my Tevas sink into it. I feel incredibly sad, because all these people thought they were going to Europe in the summer – just like Madam Dalrymple did, just like my family has in years past – and then, in a flash, it was all over. The trip of a lifetime, descending into the nightmare of a lifetime. And that’s when my choice comes clearly to me – if I can do anything at all to prevent another crash like this, that’s how I want to spend my life; and in a split second, I’ve decided on my major like that.
We stay in the Hamptons until the middle of August, and when we go back to Grosse Pointe, Grandma has a surprise for me. It’s a silver-grey Volkswagen Golf, with neat black leatherette seats, a CD player, and power everything. She even remembered I want the turbodiesel version because it’s better for the environment. It’s time for me to start packing up for MIT, and every day I sort out a part of my room and bundle up the stuff I want to bring to put into the trunk.
That last day when I head to school, I give Grandma a big, long hug, and tell her I love her. I’ve been making this mixtape specially for the long drive to college, a CD-R I’ve been burning all summer; it has all the songs of hope in it, combining songs from different decades like
Imagine
by John Lennon,
We Are The World
by Queen, and
Heal The World
by Michael Jackson. It’ll be the longest journey I’ve ever made on my own; I’ve packed my sleeping bag and blow-up mattress so I can crash with Mrs. Churchill in Buffalo on night one, and then with Elise’s family in Albany on night two, before she hops in with me and we go to our dorm on night three.
“Well, Anne. You’re an Elliot, and don’t ever forget that.” It’s probably the closest Father will ever get to bidding me a fond farewell, and I acknowledge him with a nod and a prompt “Yessir.”
Everybody else from the house gathers at the front porch as I get into the Golf to leave – not just Grandma and Liz and Mary, but both our maids and Mr. Hill and Mary’s au pair as well – and I see them all waving to me in the rear-view mirror as I drive off. A part of me feels a little bit sad to see them disappear into the distance, especially when they all came out specially to say goodbye, but then, I comfort myself, this is my family, and I’ll always be able to find a way to come back. As I go out onto the freeway, all alone on the open road, with
Imagine
playing on my car stereo, I know I am my own person at last, heading toward my adulthood and my future.
END OF PART I
Posted on 2022-03-19
Part II – Chapter 4 - Anne
But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I could have done
But clouds got in my way
–
Both Sides Now
, Joni Mitchell
January 2001, Everett, Washington
A year – and change - is a whole lot of time when you’re twenty-two. It’s five percent of the entire time I’ve been on earth. It’s practically a third of the time that Frederick and I have been together. In fact, the time we’ve been apart is exactly equal to the time we’ve been engaged, though I guess you could argue that we wouldn’t have the need to get properly engaged yet if we hadn’t known that this time apart was looming, and we needed something to hold onto. A way to mark our resolve to build a future together after this long, forced separation, because we knew Fred would be stuck for a year on an Air Force base for Undergraduate Pilot Training, which they call UPT for short, right after our graduation, with no leave allowed in between, and no way for me to go with him.
“Well, I did think a lot before I asked, about whether I was asking too early,” he’d said. “Or too late, actually. If I’d asked earlier, maybe we’d be married by now and I’d be bringing you on base with me.”
Of course, he said that half tongue-in-cheek, but that’s just his wry way of joking about all the crappy stuff that’s completely beyond our control. If just one thing had been different, we’d be in a place where I could see and touch him every day and where he’d be able to come home to me every evening, married or not. If he had parents, and they could help him out enough with expenses to have something saved up so I could join him on base without worrying about money. If Father – or even just Grandma alone – approved of our relationship (fat hope to even get them to neutral ground) so I could openly declare to them that we’re together with a clear conscience and be fully at peace with myself and my family. Or if he had some other scholarship, something that didn’t bind him to the military. Just one of those three things would’ve done the trick – it’d mean we could either get married right away after college and I could live with him in family housing during his training, or that we’d both be free to choose jobs that would allow us to live in the same city after graduating, maybe even share digs if we wanted. But the word “if” is a many-headed hydra, and we can’t go back and change what’s fixed and done. That the military is his life and his livelihood, both by necessity and by choice. And that we can’t possibly get married yet when he was always perilously close to having zero dollars in his bank account before he got commissioned as an officer and started getting full pay.
That part – the zero-dollar bit – it sounds as if Fred’s such a reckless spendthrift, when the truth is, he’s anything but. It isn’t his fault that his mom had his eldest sister Sophia when she was just sixteen and landed up on her own with three kids by the age of twenty-three. When their mom died, penniless, from a drug overdose, Sophia was the one who stepped in to become his de facto mom – and at that time, he was only thirteen and his brother Edward was fifteen. It’s a sheer miracle, growing up in the ‘hood the way they did, that Fred and Edward made it into college at all; and ROTC isn’t designed to fully eliminate the need for your parents to give you money, even when you get the Type 1 scholarship that pays all your tuition and fees, like Fred did. It gives you a cost-of-living stipend, but that amount doesn’t hit $500 a month till you’re a senior, and that’s still a far cry from what it’d cost for dorm housing alone. So, Fred ended up staying anywhere that gave him a mattress to crash on for the lowest amount of money possible – he was in a frat house freshman year, until his buddies moved off-campus and he was able to rent a corner of their living room for $100 a month. Still, a body has to eat; even with me cooking most of our meals and a $3 lunch from a food truck being a once-a-week treat, there were hardly any times he had two cents to rub together by the end of the month, especially in freshman and sophomore years. Furthermore, ROTC is so intense that it isn’t humanly possible to hold a campus job during term time, and he was already lucky that Air Force ROTC didn’t eat up that much of his summers, not like the way the Army and Navy ones could, so he could earn some money from having summer jobs most times. The most ironic thing was, they gave him nine hundred dollars a year to buy books, a far princelier sum than Father deigned necessary for my own book allowance, so we figured out the best way to put as much of that money as possible into his pocket for necessities – he’d buy brand new textbooks, for upperclass engineering texts can go for well above $100 apiece, and then I’d share my used textbooks with him so we wouldn’t scuff his books up. Two terms later, I’d sell the books in like-new condition, as if he’d passed them on to me after using them, and then hand him the cash.
A university is a great place to be in love without a cent to your name, though, because we could do so many things for free. Pick-up basketball games, free on-campus talks and concerts, watching TV at my digs with my roomies, going for runs along the Charles River, we did all those things and more. A couple times a semester maybe, we’d take the T across the river with our friends and explore the streets of Boston, though most city entertainments were priced beyond our reach. Although we had immense fun together for very little money, our relationship was built on way more than just fun. We both shared a common major; we had big dreams, dreams we were willing to fight for; and both of us knew what it was like to grow up without a mom. Since the day I met him, he’s been my biggest rock – the one man who blows me away with his authenticity and sincerity, who has the strength to hold the weight of both his burdens and mine on his determined shoulders. By the time we were upperclassmen, our lives were inextricably entwined – intellectually, socially, and logistically. We might as well have been married already, except that we were both still undergraduates on student incomes. I got a spending allowance from Father, just like Liz did, but he’d never revised the amounts all through our high school and college years. He hadn’t needed to, when he gave each of us a supplementary credit card to cover our bigger expenses with. Liz used it shamelessly to buy clothing and have extravagant clubbing sessions on weekends, but I scrupulously saved it for emergencies, and supplemented my pocket money with a campus job at the library. And during summers, I got internships to put me in a better place to find a job after graduation. All of it kept me comfortable when I was at school, but it certainly isn’t a big enough nest egg to build a home on. Not that Fred would let himself live off my income anyway – he wants to be the one to take care of me, and he’ll never accept an arrangement where he isn’t able to contribute at least his fair share.
So that’s how we landed up like this, stuck on opposite ends of the country, going cold turkey from seeing each other every day, sometimes every hour, to being unable to see each other’s faces for an entire year. The only thing holding us together being a verbal promise to be with each other for the rest of our lives, with a Polaroid we took on our Commencement Day, the day he got commissioned as an officer, him resplendent in his service dress uniform and me in my cap and gown, the words “Love you, Baby” scrawled in Sharpie on one corner, as the one tangible proof that I didn’t dream up that day, the best day ever. All the Air Force ROTC cadets getting commissioned as 2nd Lieutenants had their parents there to pin on their single gold bars, except Fred who had only me. And when he said the oath of office and I pinned the bars to his epaulettes, one on each shoulder – we knew he had achieved every single one of his dreams, and we’d done it together. That was the biggest thing, though not the last thing, we could cross off from the list of goals we hung on my refrigerator door. Weeks before graduation, he’d given me a very special gift with a very special note, telling me how much he wanted to keep me in the rest of his life, even after he went off to his base. We’d planned meticulously how we’d save up, after we started our real jobs, the ones that paid us for our degrees, so we could hope for the possibility of a future together. What we hadn’t acknowledged, though, was that but for the practical constraints, we were more than ready for that joint future to become our present, that the last thing we wanted was to slip out of each other’s lives once we both left campus. That subject was always bubbling just under the surface, both of us skirting around it, afraid that if we brought it up, we’d lose all our resolve to do the right thing, the responsible thing, to wait and lay a proper foundation for our lives. He hadn’t planned to ask me to marry him the minute we got off the stage, it just happened. There was no diamond ring, no extravagant declaration on bended knee, no
Romeo and Juliet
balcony scene. Just an intimate moment, at the same time the most public and the most private one we had together, that we will take with us the rest of our lives. At twelve, I’d never thought I would ever become like Elizabeth Bennet of
Pride and Prejudice
; but at twenty-two, the one marriage proposal I hope will be the only one I’ll ever need in my lifetime was better than any of the ones I ever read about in Austen, because it’s built upon years of shared joys, sorrows, and fears; it’s the promise to continue the life we’d already lived, where we both worked our hardest to fulfil each other’s biggest dreams.
Even though I haven’t seen his face in more than half a year, I comfort myself with the sound of his voice. He calls, like clockwork, first thing every Saturday; if we didn’t have to worry about how much long-distance calls cost, we could stay on the line for hours on end, but we try to be disciplined and pack as much togetherness as we can into a half hour. I’ve brought all the treasures from our time at college with me: the biggest and most expensive gift he ever got me, a 1:100 scale Lockheed Tristar model, sits snug on the sturdiest shelf in my bookcase, in its own little cubbyhole where I won’t knock it over. Our list of shared goals is pinned to my refrigerator with a magnet, everything crossed out except one final one, the one we didn’t get to before we finished college; we agreed that I should take the list because that last goal belongs to me. And no, it’s not “engagement” or “marriage”, because those things were beyond our capability to consider as broke college students and we only ever set goals that we were confident of executing on. On my walls, I’ve pinned up posters of the T-6 Texan II and the Lockheed Martin F-16: the aircraft which Frederick is training on, and the one he hopes to fly in future up there together side by side. Every day, I drive to work in the 1982 Pontiac J2000 Sunbird that Fred’s brother-in-law AJ handed down to him when AJ went back to the Navy after college; it was probably supposed to be brown, but now it’s unclear how much of that is its true body colour and how much is rust. That’s the car Fred asked me to junk for him when he left for UPT, except I can’t bear to do it when the bumper sticker I gave him the summer after freshman year, which says, “I love the smell of jet fuel in the morning”, is still stubbornly surviving after three summers of the hot sun beating down on it while he traipsed down south for flight training. Fred told me that car was already a beater when AJ picked it up, and by now it’s in a completely disreputable condition, but it’s the biggest physical reminder I have of Fred over here, which means it’s a treasure to me, nonetheless.
We talk every Saturday after both of us have returned from our morning runs and freshened up; by the time we hang up, it’s usually lunchtime and I go grocery shopping with my roommate Harriet, the one constant who’s stayed with me from freshman year to my new life at Boeing. Saturday evenings are usually for hanging out – the co-workers who are around our age have introduced us to their friends, and there’s usually someone planning something, mostly hanging out at people’s apartments with pizza and drinks. Sundays are when I miss Fred the most, because they’re an empty space of nothingness where our homework – and Fred’s constant presence – used to be. I do my longest runs on Sunday mornings, so that takes up a good chunk of time already; and sometimes I drive with Harriet to Seattle, exploring all the cafes and checking out cute shops in Lower Queen Anne or trying out the eclectic food at Capitol Hill. Then the grind of the week settles in – somehow, no matter how repetitive our homework got, college was seldom boring, but working as an entry-level engineer means every day you do all kinds of calculations and measurements… only to wake up the next day and do more of the same. Fred says even training for the coolest job in the world is just as boring, he spends a ton of time doing what they call “chair flying”, which is exactly what it sounds like: you sit in a chair, and you run through all the flight procedures in your head. They also make him do verbal pop quizzes on emergency procedures all the time, which means he has to store all this information in his head constantly, ready to spout it out on a second’s notice. On our Saturday calls, we make a little game out of relating the week’s most boring experiences at work in the most farcical way possible, to see who can make the other one laugh harder. In my childhood, I used to love
Peanuts
and
Calvin and Hobbes
; now, I’ve grown a new appreciation for
Dilbert
, and I’m planning to mail Fred a few volumes of
Beetle Bailey
in a couple months’ time for his 23rd birthday.
Still, I thought I’ve been trundling on pretty good, and we’re hitting the halfway mark between the last time we saw each other and the next time we’ll be together again. Things were going on as swimmingly as they possibly could with me actively missing Fred every single day, until the email from home came.
“Stage 4 adenocarcinoma,” the medical report said.
Wait. Wait a minute. Anything with an “-oma” in it sounds suspiciously like cancer. Furthermore, anything with a “carcinoma” in it is most definitely cancer. But this can’t possibly be real; I was just home last June, and everybody was fine. I read and reread that email, but no matter how many times I read it, the words stubbornly refuse to change.
I start sorting out the facts in my head:
Nobody suspected anything might be wrong – it was a regular annual check-up when an X-ray showed a lump in Grandma’s jaw.
They then went on to run more tests, and a CT scan showed that there was another lump in her lung, which was the one they called the primary.
That meant the lump in the jaw was a “secondary tumor”, also known as a “metastasis”, and because the cancer had gone from the lung into another, faraway part of the body, it was called Stage 4.
Except for the cancer, everything else in the medical report came back great. Father said he hadn’t told her, so she had no idea anything was wrong.
Except for the cancer
. Two little lumps, each of them barely the size of a marble. Hardly big enough to cause any noticeable trouble, since everything else is fine. Yet combined, because there are two of them, and they happen to be in different parts of the body, they create those damning words, “Stage 4”. And then there are three even more damning words: “Palliative care recommended”. Those aren’t the words you use for someone who feels fine, they’re the words you use to describe someone who’s dying.
Female, age 85. Stage 4 adenocarcinoma. Palliative care recommended
. All of those words are talking about someone who’s not Grandma. They’re used to describe someone the doctors can’t do anything about, a person they’re just making comfortable as they wait for her to die. I can’t let that happen, can’t let the words “Palliative Care” stay there like that. How can a person who looks fine and feels fine possibly be beyond any medical help?
Strangely, I don’t cry at all that day, or the next. It just feels so strange, so surreal, like they’re talking about somebody entirely different, a person whom I don’t know, someone I’ve never met at all. Numbly, I book my air ticket back to Detroit and take half a week off from work, thinking if I just see for myself, see that Grandma’s fine, then everything else will be all right. But drat – it’ll be Saturday when I fly, and Frederick isn’t going to be able to get to me when he calls at the usual time. I have no idea what to tell him, but I just know I can’t possibly do it in an email, so I text him, “Call me now,” knowing he’ll only get to see it when he’s ready to crash in his dorm after a long, exhausting day. Sure enough, it’s 10 p.m. Central time when my phone buzzes, which is 8 p.m. Pacific, just after I’ve cleared away my dinner dishes and gotten to the privacy of my room in the apartment I’m sharing with Harriet.
“Hey, baby. Man, I’m beat. What’s up?” Fred’s voice usually never fails to make me feel a little better right away, but not this time. I wish he wasn’t trying to sound chipper on purpose to mask his tiredness when I know my news is going to leave him even more deflated than before.
“I – sorry. OK, first thing, I need to let you know I’ll be away this weekend, so I won’t be free for our usual call. I’m flying home.” That’s the easy part of this conversation – the part that’s purely functional.
“Home? Didn’t you always say Everett is now your home?” Fred sounds puzzled; to him, I’ve not called Grosse Pointe “home” in just about forever. Especially that last semester, the one where we danced around each other all day trying not to say the things we desperately wanted to say. That semester, I’d declared to him my intention of establishing myself away from my family, making myself a new home wherever my life might take me. The thing I didn’t say, because I never dared to say it out loud, was that wherever Fred was, would always be the place I’d think of as home.
“My childhood home. Grosse Pointe. But don’t get me wrong. I’m not going back there to get back into the fold, but to figure out what’s going on.” I pause, not knowing what to say next. If I read out the medical report, that’ll make everything in it become real. And maybe it isn’t; maybe they just got it all wrong. “I got this weird report from Grandma’s check-up,” I finally say. “I’ll send it to your email tomorrow, so you can see what they say. But she was fine the last time I went back there and saw her before coming out here. Maybe it might be a mistake, but I’ll know more after I get there.”
“That sounds serious,” says Fred, pausing for a long while to think. “You sure you don’t want to talk to me about it now? You can tell me anything, you know.”
“I know.” I close my eyes and wish he was here, so I could just lean over and touch his forehead with mine, letting his presence send stillness and calm into my very being. “I guess – well, maybe – I really hope it’s not what they say it is. But I’ll keep you posted with what I find out over there – I promise.”
“Take care, OK, Anne?”
“OK. I’ll – it’ll all be fine. Good night. Love you.”
“Love you too. Sleep tight, OK?”
The next night, Friday night, which is the last night before my flight to Detroit, Fred calls me. He’s read the report in his email by now, I know.
“This – it says, your grandma has - cancer. That’s serious.” The silence hangs there between us, heavy and ponderous. And eventually, he’s the one who breaks it after a too-long, too-pregnant pause. “Are you sure you’re doing OK, Anne?”
Just by asking that, a question I don’t have an answer to, he’s made it all real. The tears that didn’t come for two and a half days now come on in full force, and I have no idea how long I sit there on my bed, my knees pulled up to my chest with one arm resting on them and my face buried in the crook of my elbow, my sobs wordlessly answering his question because I can’t.
“She – she’s the only mother I’ve had since I was old enough to remember,” I finally blurt out. “And she promised me – ever since I was five, she promised me she’ll live till she’s a hundred years old. She’s never sick, never needed the hospital. If you saw her, you’d think she was seventy-five, not eighty-five!”
“Anne.” It’s just one word, but in the low, steady tone he says it, the word envelops me like one of his giant bear hugs. The ones that anchor my world at dead center, making me feel as if the strongest wind wouldn’t be able to knock us down. “Maybe they’re right. Maybe they’re not. Whatever it is, I’ll be there with you when – when it happens. That’s a promise.”
When it happens
. That – that’s a foregone conclusion that Grandma’s going to die. Not
if
, but
when
. Fred never makes promises to me that he won’t keep; but even though I have no idea when I’ll need this one, I also have no idea how he can possibly be so sure he’ll be there when neither of us know where the Air Force will send him after he’s done with this training.
“Thank you, Fred,” I finally reply, my voice still wavery and teary. “I hope I won’t need that promise for a long, long time.”
“Surprise! I’m back!” I bound through the hallways of the big house at Grosse Pointe, trying to channel a jauntiness that I don’t feel. Our maids, Jemima and Sarah, come to greet me at the door; they’re surprised but overjoyed at my unexpected arrival, and it doesn’t seem as if they know the news. Everyone’s doing all the things they’ve always done – even though I make the most noise coming in that I possibly can, trying to get somebody to notice me, I don’t see hide or hair of Father, Liz or Mary on the way up to my old room. Grandma isn’t living at the big house anymore, now that all of us are grown; she moved back to her own house a couple streets away when Mary started going to SEM. I know exactly where everybody probably is – Mary’s in the basement entertainment room watching endless reruns of
Friends
, Father’s probably in either his bedroom or study going through the latest issues of
People
or
Tatler
so he can tell his tailor how he wants his next suit to look, and Liz is probably planning her outfit for the next social engagement she’ll attend, ostensibly as a representative of Father’s company. Although she’s on the payroll, nobody has any idea what she does except to go to every conceivable social function in New York, Boston and Chicago since apparently the ones in Detroit aren’t enough for her, flying first class even though she’s never in the air for more than two hours at a time, all in the name of making new business connections for Father.
I refresh myself in my room, then head straight to Father’s study and knock on his door, because I’m here on a mission.
“Anne, what brings you here,” asks Father, the blandness of his face and tone taking the question away from his words. “What a pleasant surprise, when we missed you at Christmas.”
The hint of a bite in his words doesn’t escape me, and I do feel a twinge of guilt about not visiting last Christmas. To reach my target amount of savings for the year, I can only afford one cross-country flight; and because I’ve qualified for the Boston Marathon this April, a once-in-a-lifetime affair, I decided to make that my trip instead of Christmas at home. With the medical report, of course all things are different now; but back then, I’d had no reason to think future Christmases at the Elliot family home would in any way become a scarcity.
“I’m sorry, Father. I was busy catching up with work, being new and all, but I came back now to make up for it,” I lie. Then, now for the true reason I’m back. “Father – I’ve read the report, and I can’t believe things are so bad they won’t do anything. Can you please tell me exactly what the doctor said?”
Father furrows his brow for a few minutes – the first time I’ve ever seen him ever have any facial expression that could make creases on his baby-smooth skin. “Frankly, I don’t remember,” he admits. “All this medical jargon, I could swear the medical profession makes up those convoluted words on purpose just to torment us – they could try to show more respect, you know. But I’ve told Mr. Shepherd to take care of things, and make sure all the bills are paid, and spare no expense for the doctors to do their best. No need to worry at all.”
“I know, Father. We can and should afford the best for Grandma. But did they say what they’ll do? Surely there’s something they can do to take the tumors out when they’re still so small?”
“The schedule for us to take her back in is with Hill, if that’s what you’re asking for. But one thing they did say was that at her age, trying to treat the tumors aggressively may do more damage. We haven’t told her a thing, because she feels perfectly fine, and we want her to be happy.”
I should’ve known I won’t get any useful information out of Father; I get out the printed medical report and find the doctor’s telephone number on the stationery header to call on Monday. For the rest of Saturday, everyone behaves exactly as if nothing has happened, and the reason for my impromptu visit is never discussed; I see Liz and Mary at dinner, but they talk about all the same things they’ve always talked about during my visits home from SEM and MIT, without mentioning the subject of Grandma. On Sunday, I hop into the Golf, which I’d left at Father’s house when I moved to Seattle, and then drive over to Grandma’s to see her.
“Anne, dear, how wonderful to see you!” Grandma greets me at the door with her usual vitality; as always, she’s impeccably turned out in her blouse and tailored slacks, with not a hair out of place. “You look so thin – are you sure you have enough to eat over there? You really ought to take better care of yourself; if you’d stayed here, we would’ve taken care of you.”
“I’m really fine, Grandma,” I say, running my hand through my overgrown mop of hair; it’s mushrooming out in an awkward bob, a necessary (evil) stage of growing out the pixie style I had in college. Elise gave me all my haircuts when we were at MIT, and now without her around, I figured it’d be easier for me to maintain my hairstyle if I grew it long again. “It’s just my hair that’s growing out, that’s all. Makes me look smaller. But anyways. I came back just for a weekend because I missed home, and yesterday I went to check in on Father, today I’m all yours. I just want to hang out here today and do all the stuff we used to back in the old days, be a kid again just for a day.”
We pop in the DVDs of Colin Firth’s
Pride and Prejudice
, going through all five hours of it during the course of the day. In between episodes, we break for lunch; these days, Sarah cooks Grandma’s meals and brings carefully packaged portions over for her to heat up in the oven when she wants them, but I don’t want to deplete her stash for the week, so I whip up some grilled cheese sandwiches for us and she’s surprised that I actually know how to cook, after all the years we girls weren’t allowed in the kitchen. She doesn’t know how I’d diligently meal-prepped every single weekend for three years to make sure Frederick and I had three healthy and balanced meals a day, or why I’d decided to wear my hair short (Elise surprised me and said I looked much better without being overpowered by my hair), or exactly what I do when I’m at work. But I still know all the old movies she likes and can reel off any of the songs she used to play, telling me they were Mom’s favorites. The eighth grader who used to read books in my room and watch TV by Grandma’s side all afternoon is now a stranger to me, and the real me is now practically a stranger to Grandma; though everyone else at home seems completely unchanged from the way they were the last time I truly lived in Grosse Pointe eight and a half years ago, before I went to boarding school.
After that day with Grandma, a day which allowed us to relive the past though I can’t quite put the present completely out of my mind, Monday comes, and I unleash my plan of attack. I call the hospital where the medical report came from early in the morning and by telling them I came back specially from out of town, I manage to get a half hour to speak to the doctor later in the day. What they tell me, though, is still deeply unsatisfying. They say surgery isn’t an option, because if the cancer has spread to two different parts of the body, then there are cancer cells all over so cutting the lumps out won’t remove the cancer. As for chemo, they don’t recommend it for someone who’s eighty-five, both because of the brutal side effects and because the cancer appears to be slow-growing and anyway, cancer cells generally don’t grow quickly in elderly people. OK, fine, I ask, then what do they recommend us to do? Then that’s when they say to bring her back for monitoring every now and then, but otherwise to just let her carry on the way she is, and whenever she needs it, they will figure out interventions to mitigate her symptoms. I guess that’s what they mean by “palliative care”, they won’t do anything to get rid of the cancer altogether, but at least they’re not saying they’ll do nothing. I’m still not convinced that this is the best we can do, so I spring into action once I get back to Father’s. Firstly, I email my boss to send in my two weeks’ notice at Boeing, because it’s clear nobody’s going to hunt for a second opinion if I don’t come back and do it myself. Next, I check up all the top hospitals and make a list: Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Mayo Clinic, MD Anderson, Johns Hopkins, and Dana-Farber are the ones that make it into my shortlist. I start calling and trying to get appointments right away, having nailed that I’ll need to do this far more than two weeks in advance. It’s late at night when I realize I’m on Eastern time, so I can still call Frederick on his cell and probably reach him in his dorm before he falls asleep.
“It’s… not good,” I tell him. “They’re not doing anything about the lumps, and I want somebody who’ll do something. She’s in great shape, and I just don’t believe ‘palliative care’ is the best I can do for her.”
“Then, what are you going to do?” he asks.
“First things first, I have to move back to Grosse Pointe.” I gulp. “It’s a real bummer, but Father and Liz and Mary are absolutely no use at all. They’re completely clueless, and none of them has the motivation to look for better options. But I’m not staying put for long – I’ll find a second opinion, somewhere else that can do something, and wherever that is, I’m going to take her there.”
“Wow.” For once, Fred is completely lost for words, and I can’t blame him. We’re both only twenty-two; what do we know about cancer, after all? There’s nothing he could say except for platitudes, and we both know this is a disaster: not only because the cancer is real, but also because the time we have to wait before we can finally be together has just grown from six months to – maybe forever.
“Anne, it – I don’t know,” he finally says. “Whatever you need to do, I’ll wait for you. When AJ first started going out with Sophia, y’know, they were only in high school. He was eighteen, and she was just sixteen. Me and Ed thought he’d forget about her after he joined the Navy, but he waited for five years and then he married her when he could. He kept writing and calling her from wherever he was, and finally when he was twenty-three, he got into the NESEP program and got a trailer for us all to live in while he went to Ann Arbor. If he could do that for Sophia, I can do that for you.”
“Fred – I don’t know if five years is enough,” I say. “I – I want it to be – forever. I can’t imagine a world without Grandma in it, and she promised. One hundred years. I still think she can make it, or at least I want to try.” I start sniffling again.
“I don’t think…” Fred tries to say something, then kills his thought mid-sentence. “No matter how long it takes, I’ll wait,” he finally says. “That’s a promise.”
After I get back to Everett, my days are filled to the brim with handing over my duties and packing. Moving out of my apartment feels almost like a bad break-up; Harriet and I have been roomies for so long that we’ve bought a ton of stuff for our apartment, most of which we transported directly from Cambridge to Everett, without really thinking of figuring out whose stuff is whose, and it’s now my job to split it all.
“You can have everything in the kitchen,” I tell her. “After all, I’m going to boomerang back into my eighth-grade self, living off my only functioning parental unit.” There’s a bitter edge to my voice, but I don’t care.
Harriet is so nice about it, almost too nice. I promise her I’ll pay her my share of the rent till she finds another roommate to replace me, but she kindly tells me not to worry because she’ll still have her job and her pay, and she can ask her parents to help her out in the meantime if she needs. She kneels beside me, both of us folding up clothes and putting them in boxes. Through every step of the process of packing up and getting ready to move out, she’s there with me all the time, making sure I’m never alone. And she promises to supervise the movers when they come to pick up my stuff, because they’re all booked up many weeks out, and I don’t want to delay going back for that long.
That Saturday, the last one I spend in Everett, Fred doesn’t call. I’m still up to my neck with packing, but every now and then I keep staring at the phone, willing it to start buzzing, but it never does. I wonder if this is it, that he’s decided it’s over because I can’t be with him in the foreseeable future when I’ve got to move back and be with Grandma. Or if he’s sick or injured – or worse. I text, “Are you OK?” and check my phone practically every twenty minutes for his reply, but it never comes.
Sunday morning, I’m in such a funk I don’t have any energy for my usual run and Harriet finds me sitting in a ball on our futon couch, staring blankly into space. I still haven’t heard from Fred at all, not even by text.
“Come,” Harriet finally says, taking me by the hand and dragging me off the couch. “Anne, it’s your last weekend here, and you can’t say you’ve lived in the Seattle area till you’ve properly celebrated the life of Kurt Cobain. We haven’t been yet, so let’s go to the Experience Music Project and we can drown all our sorrows in rock.”
Harriet’s idea turns out to be a brilliant one – I’m still miserable but spending a day with Pearl Jam and Nirvana and Alice in Chains reminds me that I’m not the only tortured soul on this entire planet. And after we listen to all the hits we want, standing in line twice sometimes to get another round with the headphones, we head to Linda’s Tavern in Capitol Hill, the place where Kurt Cobain was supposedly last seen alive. We order mac and cheese because that’s what they say was his favorite dish, and then I progress from beer on to shots. I have no idea how wasted I am, but at some point, I remember the Beatles had to know what lost love was like if they could write Yesterday and I have no idea if I’m really belting it out loud or only in my mind.
Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away, now it looks as though they’re here to stay, oh I believe in yesterday
…
On Monday I have a splitting headache, but I’ve promised to work out my notice period and have a whole bunch of handover meetings to do, so Harriet lets me ride with her to work and back in her car and I plod through the day. There are still no texts from Fred, and I sink exhausted into the futon after we get back to our apartment, dozing off right there in the living room without any dinner.
Fred finally calls me on Tuesday, during the day while I’m at work. Usually, his days are much longer than mine and he’s not allowed to use his phone when he’s in training, so this isn’t good either – it means either he’s cutting training to call me, or –
“I’m so sorry babe,” he says. “I wanted to call, but I couldn’t.”
“Fred, are you OK?” I’m starting to suspect that one of my theories was correct, and though I’m relieved he isn’t breaking up with me, this alternative isn’t necessarily any better. “Did you have an accident?”
“Yeah, sort of. But I’m fine now.” Unconsciously, he puts emphasis on the now, which means for the past few days, he wasn’t fine.
“You don’t
sort of
have accidents, you either have them, or you don’t. Where were you hurt? How bad was it?” I know he’s probably downplaying whatever happened, so it must be bad. And I feel awful, because through all of this, I’ve been only thinking about myself and Grandma, and not about Fred. This news must be almost as horrible for Fred as it is for me, because it throws all our previous plans down the drain and puts our future together indefinitely on hold. He’s been so calm every time he spoke to me on the phone, but still, I’m the reason why he lost focus and got into trouble. And probably got hurt, even though he doesn’t want to tell me about it.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says, still evading my questions. “I’m OK now, I really am. And I’ll be going back to training tomorrow. How are you holding up?”
“I’m almost all packed, and Harriet’s a godsend. She’s been keeping me sane all week. Fred, please promise me – you’ll be careful, and please,
please
don’t get into any more accidents again.”
“I’ll be careful. I promise.” He’s careful. He never makes any promises he can’t keep, and so that’s why he doesn’t promise to never have another accident again.
“I’m so glad to hear you’re OK now. I was so worried about you, and I don’t want to ever have to worry like this again, OK? And I’ll call you when I get back to Grosse Pointe and settle down at Grandma’s. I’ll be keeping this cell phone, so you can text me anytime you want. Please, promise me you’ll take care of yourself this week and I’ll call you on the weekend.”
“OK, I will. Love you, baby.”
“Love you, too.”
When I get back to Grosse Pointe on Saturday, pulling a roller suitcase with only the stuff I need immediately, I realize there are a ton of things I haven’t thought of. Most of all, I don’t have a job anymore, now that I’ve resigned from Boeing, and with no income, who is going to support me? How am I going to explain why I’m moving in with Grandma, when she doesn’t know about her illness? What is going to happen if anyone catches me talking to Fred on the phone? Who is going to pay for travel and accommodations when we go looking for second opinions? A week ago, I thought I was sure about my plan, until all the loopholes in it start staring at me in the face.
I get the taxi to bring me around to Father’s, because at least there’s a bedroom in his house that’s technically my property, sort of. This time, I try to make the least noise possible going up into my room, hoping nobody is going to notice me. After dropping my suitcase off there, I head to Father’s study and plant myself in the leather-backed chair facing him across the desk. I wait until I’ve engaged his attention, eye to eye, before I speak.
“Father, I need your help, please,” I say earnestly. I never thought I’d ever end up begging from Father, but there’s no way I can deal with a problem like cancer on my own when I’m only 22 and my bank account has just barely crossed the five-figure mark. “We need to find a way to help Grandma. I’ve moved back so I can help her get a second opinion, go to more hospitals, and find someplace that’s willing to do something to take away the cancer. But I need you too, to help me help her.”
“Anne, I told you the last time, I’m willing to spare every expense to see to her needs. And the doctors know best, they’ll tell us what we need to do.” The furrowed brow, again. So, at least Father cares more about Grandma than he does about his complexion, which is a good sign. “Are you telling me you think the doctors aren’t doing enough?”
“Father, after we talked the other time, I went back to the hospital to ask them some questions, ‘cause if the lumps are so small and she feels fine, I can’t understand why they aren’t trying to take them out,” I explain, trying to break down everything into simple words he can understand. “Here’s what I know: if you want to take a cancer out, you have three ways to do it – surgery, radiation, or chemo. These lumps are small, so I asked them if they could cut them out, but they said no because there are two of them in different places, and also because they don’t want to put someone who’s eighty-five through surgery. They didn’t talk about radiation, but they did say they won’t try chemo because they think it’ll make her sicker than if they didn’t do anything. And they said, cancer grows slower in older people, so there’s a chance they’ll die of something that isn’t cancer anyway. But I don’t believe that’s true with Grandma, ‘cause she’s so healthy there won’t be other things for her to die of before she dies of cancer if they don’t do anything. I’m back now, and I came back for good; I want to help find someone who will be willing to treat the cancer and give Grandma more time.”
“Well, you’re an Elliot after all, and this house is as much yours as anyone’s, I suppose. You’ve always come and gone as you wanted, anyway. And I told you I’ll spare no expense with her treatment – just send the bills to Mr. Shepherd. But are you sure you know better than the doctors? After all, you’re still so young.”
“Well, I don’t think I know better than the doctors,” I admit, “but maybe there’s some other doctors out there who do. We’re the Elliots, after all, and we’ve always gone for the best in everything.” I wince when I say this, because I never hankered after the best of anything when it just costs tons of money and does nothing except puff up Father’s pride, not until it becomes a matter of life and death. “So why not look for the best of medical care when it comes to Grandma? I quit my job over at Boeing, just so I can take her to all those other hospitals I made appointments with, until we find somebody who has a solution.”
“Very well,” he says loftily; I sense he’s losing interest in this discussion and agreeing just so he can get rid of me. “And is there anything else you want from me?”
“Father, you told me she still doesn’t know she has cancer,” I venture timidly. This is the one thing I don’t think I can do, and I don’t know if he will help, but I’m desperate. “Can you please tell her what she needs to know before we go to the hospitals? I’m really scared I will mess it up if I tell her.”
He turns his chair ever so slightly so that he’s not looking me in the eye; I’ve opened up this landmine, this can of worms that none of us want to touch. There’s a long silence, him pretending to look out the window and me lowering my eyes to the floor, and I know I’ve boxed myself into a stalemate.
“I guess we don’t have to tell her today,” I finally say. “I’ll think about it. Thank you, Father.”
Then I take my leave of the room swiftly and quietly, closing the door as softly as I can on my way out.
The next two weeks, I hide behind a façade; I tell everyone I’ve come back because I missed home and especially Grandma, and most nights I end up hanging out at her place till I crash there though my official residence is still with Father. Our house is so huge nobody can hear anyone else most of the time, but Grandma’s residence is more compact, so I know I can’t possibly talk to Fred on the phone when I’m bunking in with her if I don’t want her to find out. So, our conversations get reduced to hasty texts, hammered out furiously in the deep of night before we go to bed. He knows the essence of what’s going on, but we have no freedom or privacy to properly discuss it together, and I get repeated reassurances that he’s back in tip-top shape and flying again, but never get any more details from him about the mishap he had. Replies come to the requests I sent out for appointments with the hospitals, and I spend a few hours every day in my room pretending to read when I’m actually at my laptop making travel arrangements and getting everything scheduled.
I line up all the appointments from the nearest out: Johns Hopkins, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Dana-Farber, MD Anderson, Mayo Clinic, and then if we can’t get any of them to help us, we might do the California circuit of UCLA, Cedars-Sinai, and Stanford. As the first appointment with Johns Hopkins draws near, I wonder what I’ll tell Grandma.
Eventually, I chicken out and lie; I say that I haven’t been to Baltimore yet, and before I find another job and get busy again, I want to go there with her and explore. After we get there, we have a full day to ourselves before the day of the appointment, so we’re able to visit the National Aquarium and see the USS Constitution at Inner Harbour. We take lots of pictures, especially with all the architecture, like the World Trade Centre by I.M. Pei and the 19th-century City Hall and rowhouses. Then the next day, I drive her to Johns Hopkins in our rental car, and this time I’ve got to explain why we’re going to a hospital, so I say that at her last check-up, the doctor suggested we get a few more things checked out, just in case, and so since we’re here in Baltimore, the city with one of the most famous hospitals in the world, we might as well do it here. She looks at me askew for a moment, but doesn’t ask any more questions, and so I think I’ve gotten away with my charade, at least for this visit. And after the day of tests and scans is over, I take her to Inner Harbour and pick a fancy Italian restaurant for dinner. Over dinner, we talk as if nothing is amiss; I give her an edited version of my life in Seattle with Boeing, and she fills me in on all the latest that’s been going on with Liz and Mary and Father. Then we fly home the third day, and I anxiously await the results.
About a week later, I get a call from Hopkins asking us to go in again; this time, I ask Father to come with us, and he reluctantly agrees. The doctor wants all three of us to be in the room, and he directly addresses Grandma, instead of talking around her to us.
He shows us the two scans with the two lumps, both still barely the size of marbles, and explains what adenocarcinoma is, and why they think the lump in the lung was the first one. Then, he reassures us that the cancer is slow growing, and says he has a plan for treatment. We will be doing a course of low-dose chemotherapy, and the goal will be to keep the cancer under control and bring down the tumour markers as far as possible.
Grandma doesn’t flinch and doesn’t fall apart. When the doctor tells us that adenocarcinoma is a cancer, she says, “I know”, and I ask, bewildered, “How did you know?”
“I can read,” says Grandma calmly. “When you brought me in here, the signs said ‘Oncology’, and I know what that word means.”
So, she probably knew all along, I realize. After all, they must’ve had signs like these at our local hospital back in Detroit too. And yet she’s probably been the most even keeled of all of us, despite seeing through all our flimsy charades. I think about how I would feel in her shoes; what it would be like to be eighty-five and have a cancer that can’t be completely taken away even if you treat it, and I wonder how she can face all that without panic, since even imagining it makes a twinge of fear shoot right through me.
Before we leave the doctor’s office, I pick up the medical report they give to us, and quickly skim it from top to bottom. It still has the word “adenocarcinoma” on it, but the two most damning words, “palliative care”, are gone. That’s good; I know I’ve found the place which can do the best for her, at last.
The next few days are a whirl of activity; I have to cancel the appointments with all the other hospitals and find a short-term fully furnished apartment for us to stay at during chemo. Then, I text Fred our temporary address, but also need to let him know we won’t be able to call each other, since I don’t have a bedroom of my own in this apartment. After sending Father back to the airport, I swap our rental car out for a smaller model I can rent at a monthly rate. We have some basic things with us, but we’d packed for a three-day stay, not a three-month one, so I figure out what we might want to buy and what we should arrange to get sent from home. There’s no entertainment here except cable TV, because naturally all our books, CDs and DVDs are all at home. I end up tuning into
Days of Our Lives
and
All My Children
to keep Grandma entertained, while I creep off into the bedroom to Google everything I can about adenocarcinoma.
Cancer and statistics have never been best friends; in the movies when the doctors tell people they have cancer, they always tell them how long they’ll live. When people in movies and TV get cancer, they start out feeling fine, and drawing up all these bucket lists going off doing all the things they want. Then they go for chemo, and that’s when all their hair drops out. But they carry on, falling madly in love or going on that trip of a lifetime or whatever, until they faint, and the doctor tells them the chemo isn’t working anymore. Then they slowly wither away and eventually die, almost to the day the doctor predicted.
I don’t know if it’s necessarily a good thing, but what I find out is cancer in real life is nothing like the movies. You can have two people with the same kind of cancer, and the progress of their disease may look nothing like each other. Nobody can tell if a person will live months or years, and that’s why the doctors now stop telling you how much time you’ve got left when they deliver a cancer diagnosis. The thought of years gives me hope – maybe if they can bring the tumor markers down with chemo and make the lumps even smaller still, then we can carry on like this, and it isn’t all that awful. After all, she can still walk, eat, talk and enjoy life; the best news would be if the cancer could go away, but since that isn’t going to happen, then isn’t it great if the cancer always stays small enough that it doesn’t cause trouble?
Days in the oncology clinic are long and boring, but the longer it is, the better. When you know each day is irreversible, the passage of time that can’t be rewound, with a cancer that can’t be reversed, then the best thing is for time not to pass. I don’t want things to change, and I don’t want time to pass, which means I’m stuck in this limbo forever, the one where Frederick and I don’t have a future. I let the days stretch long before me, we watch the TV screens in the chemo room to pass the time, and whatever is looping there is incredibly boring to me, so it makes the time stretch even slower. There’s only that long I can stand this, though, so eventually I end up binge-ordering books on Amazon: the books on cancer nutrition, the cancer memoirs, and the reference books, so I can plough through them through the long days of chemo and the even longer days between chemo. Slowly, the books pile up in our one-bedroom apartment, taking over corners of the living room as they stack up into high piles on the floor. They’re dry and depressing reading, which makes time seem to pass even more slowly; I’ve succeeded in slowing time down, but also in making that time into absolute agony, for time always passes faster when you’re happy, so to slow it down you end up robbing it of all its joy.
Chemo is kind to Grandma; it’s low dose, after all, so luckily, she gets nausea and loses her appetite but doesn’t puke, and her hair thins instead of her going completely bald. I shop for wigs anyway and get her a head of blond curls like Blanche Devereaux from
The Golden Girls
. Whenever we have a good day, we spend our time hanging out at Inner Harbor, trying out all the fancy restaurants; I’ve got Father’s credit card, after all, and as long as it’s for Grandma, I spend shamelessly because she’s earned it, whereas I haven’t.
One day, a package from Amazon arrives on our doorstep, and it’s addressed to me. This is the first piece of mail I’ve gotten which wasn’t something I ordered myself, and I tear it open eagerly. It’s Lance Armstrong’s
It’s Not About the Bike
, and the receipt in the package tells me that Fred ordered it from his military base. Lance accompanies me to chemo after that, and much as I know it’ll help me learn more about cancer, I also relish in the beginning chapters, the ones where he was twelve years old in Plano and flew away on his bike. When I’m Lance, I can fly; flying away from all this cancer stuff; away from all the hospitals back to a land where I can have dreams again. Even though our conversations have degenerated into texts, Fred is still the person who knows what I need, what really speaks to me; the realization of this leaves me nearly in tears.
Maybe a twenty-third birthday shouldn’t be a big deal; after all, we’ve gotten past all the birthdays that will unlock new freedoms. I can work, I can drive, I’m not jailbait if someone knocks me up, I can get married without parental consent, I can vote, and I can drink. Hah – isn’t it ironic the order in which those freedoms come up? You’d think drinking was the first thing that would spark all the other things, but who knows? Anyways, I’ve gotten off the point here; the main thing is, this is the first birthday where I have the three no’s – no cards, no cake, no presents. Apparently, this is what happens when you get too old for milestones, and you know, it’s all downhill from here. Thanks so much, world, for reminding me that I peaked at 21. All I get this year is a text from Frederick who remembers to wish me a happy birthday, and the rest of the world might as well have forgotten that I exist.
The other thing that April brings, besides my birthday, is Boston Marathon day. I’d dreamed of qualifying for Boston all the way since freshman year, and when I finally BQ’ed, I have to forfeit my place anyway because I can’t leave Baltimore. My initial plan was to qualify in time to do it in senior year, before graduating college, but I tanked our qualifying race pacing Frederick to his BQ. He was really sorry about it, and explained he got distracted because of the warm-up song, a song about apartheid he didn’t expect to play at such a big occasion. And then, he paced me to my qualification in October 1999, so I could enter the Boston Marathon for 2001. With not a cent to his name, time was the currency he dealt in while we were in college, and the biggest gifts he gave to me were gifts of time. During that year, he was extremely stressed out with the Professional Officer Course and Leadership Laboratory, as well as the pressure to graduate on time, yet he made time to ensure I got to fulfil my dreams anyway. Who’d know that after all that effort, I’d end up being stuck here in Baltimore, forced to default on my race, ensuring that last item on our list of goals will never get checked off?
After the three-month course of chemo has ended, they measure Grandma’s tumor markers again, and they’re all the way down. I almost feel like giving all the doctors at Hopkins a high-five, but I do realize they probably won’t appreciate the gesture. They give us a plan for maintenance therapy, and then we can head home.
The movers have sent all the stuff I shipped home from Everett to Grandma’s, just as I asked them to, and the living room is chock full of boxes and packages when we get there. As for the Pontiac, I told them to send it somewhere else, to someone who’ll safekeep it for me. But there is also a new row of smaller packages in front of the piles of moving boxes, and they’re all addressed to me too; they’re birthday gifts from all my roomies from college as well as all of Fred’s too. Elise has gotten me a perpetual motion machine, with the words “May we all live forever” inscribed in the stand, Emma got me a cute outfit that’s sexy without being slutty, Harriet sent me the cuckoo clock I picked out for our college apartment which I left for her, Benwick gave me a book of poetry (how predictable), and from Harville, I get a kit to build the T-6 Texan model. None of them have Grandma’s address, so right away I know who has orchestrated all of this: Fred. When I text him to thank him, he gives me the wink emoji and says, wasn’t he brilliant to think of all of this, when he can’t openly give me a gift in his name to my household.
Before I unpack my tower of boxes, Grandma and I have something more urgent to do. We get out all the CDs of Mom’s favorite songs and play them all just for old times’ sake. One of those that Grandma likes best is Frankie Valli’s
Can’t Take My Eyes Off You
, except to me, there’s now a new definitive version, which is the 1998 cover of the song by Lauryn Hill. That was the year every single touchy-feely love song set Fred and me off; instead of Frankie, I keep hearing Lauryn’s voice singing sensuously, “Uh, uh, uh uh, I need you baby, if it’s quite alright, I need you baby, all through the lonely nights…” and I miss Frederick, in the most tactile way possible.
“Anne, dear, you’re tearing up,” says Grandma. “What’s wrong, honey?”
“I… I guess I’m just missing Mom,” I prevaricate. It’s a bald-faced lie, but there’s no way I can possibly tell Grandma the truth, so I just swallow the guilt and carry on.
“Oh honey,” Grandma hugs me tightly. “I miss your mom, too. And I know I’m not long for this world, so I pray for the day when I’ll see her again in heaven.”
That gets me feeling even more guilty for betraying Grandma and lying about it, even when we both know her time might be up any minute. Just like I’ve done through all the twenty-three years of my life, I bury my face in her lap and bawl, and she smooths my hair just like always; only this time, we don’t know how many more times like this we will have, even though we’re both loath to admit it.
Finally, I unpack the last of my boxes and take out the list of goals Fred and I made, the one where everything but my Boston Marathon got crossed out; I put it away with all my old journals from my school days, stapling it to the page with the bucket list I wrote the summer before I went to college. And when I look at that yellowing page, I feel as though it could have been written by a stranger, for my days are now divided between the Before Times and the After Times, where everything that was important to me changed when I met Fred.
Get a summer job as a counselor at Raquette Lake Camp
– seriously, that had to be the most bourgeois of all my goals. Once I knew I had to make my way in the world on my own with Fred, I had to start planning for summer jobs that would pave the way to real jobs. Internships weren’t much better than filling my summers with school, but they’d make sure I had the best chance of landing a job offer right after graduation, and of getting jobs that would pay me in full for all the investment Father had made in my education.
Be a leader in aircraft design, so you can prevent plane crashes from happening
– well, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that if Fred and I got married, because he needs to be in active duty for ten years to repay the military for his pilot training. That means I need to live on base after I marry him, and there won’t be the money for grad school. I can still be an engineer, but without a graduate degree, I’m stuck with operating stuff other people design, not innovating and designing the future of aircraft.
See the US and see the world
– well, we sort of got there, whatever we could see with Amtrak and Greyhound and $10 a night backpacker hostels. And I guess I’ve seen quite a bit of the world when Father used to bring us on exotic vacations, but travel is a bottomless pit that always leaves you hungry for more.
Run the Boston Marathon before you graduate
– this was the one that almost got there, the one that just got away. I can’t blame Fred for taking this one away, when it was my decision to throw my race by pacing him; he had such a difficult life growing up, I just couldn’t bear to let him fail at anything again. But it was such a close shave, and Fred has nothing to do with the reason why I can’t run it this year, maybe ever again.
As with all the other relics from my school days, the journal goes into a box that I seal up and stash under the bed in Grandma’s guest room; I’m putting my childish things away for good, to face this barren future ahead of me. Forever – because for as long as I want Grandma with me, none of this can change.
Posted on 2022-03-26
Chapter 5
May 2001, Grosse Pointe, Michigan
The familial units don’t leave us alone for long once Grandma and I get back to Grosse Pointe; blood is thicker than water after all, no matter what you say. On Mother’s Day, Father, Liz and Mary show up on our doorstep with a huge bouquet of flowers, right after they come back from church.
“
Grand
-ma!” wails Mary dramatically, falling into Grandma’s arms when we greet them at the door. “I missed you
so
much, and every day I was worried that you were gonna
die
!”
“There, there, child,” says Grandma, patting Mary on the head though she staggers backward slightly with Mary’s unexpected weight leaning on her. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”
“Mary, don’t,” says Liz, pulling Mary roughly away from Grandma just as I step in to catch Grandma by the shoulders from behind. “You’re such a
child
. It’s high time you grew up some, you’re almost nineteen, for heaven’s sake.”
“Rowena.” Fine lines appear on Father’s forehead as he studies Grandma closely, looking her up and down. “How have you been doing? The girls brought flowers in honor of Mother’s Day, just for you – Anne, can you go get some water to put them in, please?”
“Coming up right now,” I say, only heading into the house when I see Liz has a firm grip on Mary and won’t let her bowl Grandma right over again. Still, I keep turning my head around periodically as I scootch into the kitchen to grab a vase and fill it with water, bringing it back out for Father to set the bouquet into. “Won’t you come in please? Just make yourselves comfortable in the living room, it’s been ages since we last caught up and we can talk for longer this way.”
Even though they’re ostensibly here to ask after Grandma, nobody wants to talk about the subject of chemo; it’s skirting uncomfortably close to the taboo of talking about death. So, they ask about all the superficial things: the fancy restaurants we went to at Inner Harbor, whether the shopping in Baltimore is any better than in Detroit (we have no idea), how the weather was (beautiful, thank you, and here are the photos of the cherry blossoms), and finally, whether I’ve managed to meet any men over there.
“Nope,” I say cheerfully. “No suitable ones, at least. Guess you’re stuck with me for good now – I’m officially an old maid at the ripe old age of twenty-three.” That’s at least partially true, since I don’t need a
suitable
man when I’ve already got an
unsuitable
one, and I’ve earned the right to poke some fun at them being stuck with me since everyone ought to know I’m only here because I’m the one doing all the heavy lifting of looking after Grandma.
Grandma shakes her head at me, but her eyes betray the hint of a smile, as Father says, “Anne, watch your mouth,” in exactly the same tones he’d just used to ask me to go get the water.
I change the subject then, by showing them my photos of Seattle: the quirky cafes, the view of Lake Union from Gasworks Park, landscape views of Rainier and the Olympics shining white against the clear blue sky, the boathouses moored on the lake, and Pike Place Market. Carefully, I keep all the personal snapshots under wraps, even the ones with just Harriet in them; those will get too close to my life at MIT and to Fred – a bigger taboo even than talking about death, because being an Elliot is all about maintaining the shiny veneer of perfection. Everything has to be posh, pristine and picture-perfect. There’s no room for authenticity, for
life
, and all the messiness that comes with it. And one part of that means a good Elliot girl isn’t even supposed to be seen with, let alone marry, a black man who grew up in the ‘hood. Especially if said man had a mom who did drugs. Even if that self-same man also happens to be a scholar, an officer, and a gentleman at the same time.
They don’t stay long in the end, because our lives don’t quite measure up to their standards of glitz and glamour, but we don’t get back our peace for long till Charles comes calling.
“Hey, Mrs. Stevenson,” he says. “How ya feelin’? Mary told me y’all were back, so I figured I’d come by to see you.”
I roll my eyes at him in irritation, wondering what it is with everyone asking Grandma how she’s feeling all the time. Don’t you know that’s the most tiresome question you could ask someone with cancer – what answer would you expect, anyway? If they follow the usual script and tell you they’re fine, they’re lying because they have cancer. And if they tell you how
not
fine they are, well, some wonderful conversation you’re going to have.
“Very well, thank you,” says Grandma gracefully. “Today’s a good day.”
“Good, good, that’s great,” says Charles, not missing a beat in his cheerfulness. Charles is just as he ever was, and he hasn’t got a mean bone in his body, but as far as Grandma is concerned, he’s hitting all the wrong notes and it annoys me. “Well, it’s good to see you too, Anne. Hey, it’s Sunday – want to hang out for a bit, just like old times?”
“Go ahead, Anne, I won’t break from spending an afternoon here on my own. You need to get out and have some fresh air,” encourages Grandma. “You both enjoy yourselves and don’t worry about me, all right?”
“OK, Grandma,” I say. “I won’t be long, be back in a little bit.” Partly, I just want to get Charles out of there; his perpetual cheerfulness feels a little bit like a bull in a china shop, especially when all our emotions are somewhat fragile at the moment.
“I thought you’d want to see that car of yours, now that you’re back,” says Charles after we close the door. “So, I’ll show you where I stashed it. Far away from the prying eyes of the parental units.”
He’s put the Pontiac in Pontiac – the outlet of his family’s garage chain that’s farthest away from downtown, the one which his parents visit the least frequently. I have decidedly mixed feelings about that one - part of me wants to laugh at the humor in the obvious pun, a part of me appreciates him protecting my privacy by not outing the car – and the identity of its owner – to his parents on my behalf, and yet, a third part of me seethes with a slight sense of injustice. Sure, it’s a ratty, cheap, almost twenty-year-old jalopy, but does that mean it has to be relegated to one of our poorest suburbs just by default? Isn’t that appropriation?
The Pontiac is in just about as good shape as I’d expect, which means none the worse for wear since the day I took it out of Fred’s hands. Bumper sticker still readable, still hanging on in there. Its engine starts. All good there.
“Anne, are you planning to drive it around when you’re here?” asks Charles.
“Maybe. I don’t know.” I haven’t thought this far yet because there’s been way too many weightier issues to solve. Like scheduling maintenance therapy, for example. And figuring out if there’ll be a way for me to juggle a job around getting Grandma to and from her appointments. How to hide the Pontiac – for I know full well it can’t see the light of day with Father, Grandma or my sisters around – has been one of the things farthest away from my mind, even though it’s an absolutely necessary thing to do.
“Well, if you do, there’s stuff you need to know. Who is Akida Jahir Croft, by the way?”
“Akida…” I’m puzzled for a minute before the realization hits me. “Oh, that must be AJ! Why are you asking? And where did you come across his name?”
“That’s the name of the person whom the car is registered to,” explains Charles. “I had to check it up because the tabs expired last June, so if you want to drive it, you’ll have to get him to renew them, or to transfer the car to you so you can buy new tabs. Anyway, who is he? I figured he must be your secret boyfriend from Seattle or something.”
“Not quite,” I reply. “He’s my future brother-in-law. And there’s no way I can get him to sign the car over to me, because he’s in Guam right now with the Navy, and I have no idea how to get in touch with him.”
“Your future… you mean, Anne, you’re
engaged
?” Charles’ eyes widen with surprise, before he breaks out into a big grin. “Congratulations! Nobody ever said anything though – not your grandma, not Mary… Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“Thanks,” I say, returning his smile before letting out a wistful sigh. “I wish I could’ve told you before, too, but it’s top secret because my family doesn’t know, and I’m not going to tell them yet especially with all this other stuff going on. You’re the only person in Michigan who knows about it, and I can’t even tell your parents. Don’t get me wrong, your parents are great – but telling them is too risky, it’d be almost like telling Father, and I’ll be so dead if he finds out. Not to mention, I can’t imagine what it’d do to Grandma if she knew.”
“Why? Ah, I guess… the name? So, this guy with the car is his brother, huh? Does that mean he’s…er…
black
?” Charles has never had a ton of imagination, and I never told him any details about Fred during our college years because, as you can imagine, that topic’s sensitive when I told Charles I couldn’t date him because I already had a boyfriend. Still, that was years ago, and we’ve long moved past the awkwardness of that situation, especially when he knows that the rest of his life is here in this garage chain, and he’d never have moved to Seattle for me if I’d stayed at Boeing.
“Yes,” I reply matter-of-factly. “He is, though AJ is Fred’s brother-in-law, not his brother. That doesn’t matter to me one bit, but you can imagine Father would think differently – and Grandma, she’s a traditionalist. She’ll never say anything impolite to anyone’s face, but still, she’s made her preferences clear. And, well, anyone who doesn’t come from a picture-perfect, squeaky-clean prep-school mold isn’t who she prefers, so that excludes the vast majority of the human population.”
“Well, I’ve always been glad my folks are more easy-going than yours about such things, though I say, I never thought of doing anything shocking like that. How long have you been with him, anyway? Surely you haven’t made this decision in a rush? Or do you…” He trails off, trying to find a delicate way to say it. “Um, you don’t… if you
need
to get married, then surely… you can’t keep it from your folks that long?”
“No, I don’t. I don’t
need
to, in that sense, but Fred’s been the only person I’ve ever thought of marrying for years. Since we were nineteen, I knew I didn’t want to date anyone else for the rest of my life. He’s been my friend, my rock, and my partner for pretty much my entire college life, all the way from spring semester in freshman year. And now, when he’s in military pilot training and can’t get out till August, I miss him a ton.”
“Aha.” A contemplative look crosses Charles’ face. “Freshman year. So, he’s the guy you were dating when you told me you couldn’t be my girlfriend because you were already with someone else. All this time, I thought I’d either lost out to a crazy smart geek, or to some filthy rich kid from prep school, but turns out, you passed me over for a black guy with a beat-up car.”
I know Charles, and he’s never mean or spiteful to anyone on purpose. But somehow, the racist undertone of his remark irks me, and I’m just as horrified at myself as I am at him, because I know I’d never have thought about it this way before I met Fred either. Was this how we were, then, in the Before Times? Believing ourselves to be perfectly nice, upright, and benign people, while we were walling ourselves up in a world that was only white?
To his credit, Charles realizes his mistake almost immediately. “Erm… sorry,” he stammers, reddening in embarrassment as he flicks his gaze to the floor. “I… I really didn’t mean it that way. Honest. I… I just never thought we’d ever date anyone…who wasn’t like us.”
“That’s the thing, though,” I say staunchly. “In all the ways that matter, Fred’s just like us. Better than us, even, in terms of all the things he’s accomplished already, and his future ahead of him. When I met him in my freshman design class, I was first and he was second in our project demo, but it could easily have gone the other way. He’s been neck to neck with me in many of my classes, and way better than me in some of them. Now he’s a commissioned officer in the Air Force, and even before he was in the military, he already had a lot of duty and responsibility in his life, but he carries all his burdens with such good grace. I wish I wasn’t adding to them, though; I don’t deserve him at all, especially when I’m in a situation like this.”
“Don’t ever say that Anne, not when you deserve every single person in your life who treats you well. You’re just about the kindest person I’ve ever met, and I’ve known you ever since we were three.” How ironic again, when all the kids at our school used to tease us for being a long-time couple, that when Charles and I should have our deepest conversation in two decades of knowing each other, it’s all about my love for another man. “Anyways. What are you going to do with the car? There’s only one of you, and you’ve got your own car here at home, so surely you won’t want to pay for two sets of car tabs and all? Besides, unless you find another job, you’ll still have to send the bills to your dad. Unless you’re keeping it for your fiancé?”
Car tabs. That was one more thing I’d never thought about – I’ve been driving my Golf around for so many years now, and somebody, probably Mr. Shepherd, must’ve been taking care of that for me. I feel mortified, because now I realize why Fred asked me to junk the car; it hadn’t been because he thought he was above driving a ratty old Pontiac after he got commissioned. Rather, he was probably thinking we’d get cash from junking it, instead of paying for tabs for a car that neither of us technically need.
“Fred asked me to junk it, actually,” I admit. “I was the one who couldn’t let it go, not when it represents so many of my memories of us in college. You’re right – it doesn’t make sense for me to pay to keep two cars and Father’s still paying the tabs on mine, actually. But if I don’t drive it on the road and just keep it here, just to remind me of him, would that be possible?”
“I don’t know how long I can keep it, though,” says Charles. “So far, I’ve been lucky that my parents don’t come around here much, and we haven’t needed the space, but I can’t possibly let you store a car here for free indefinitely. And I don’t think you want to pay for the space either, do you? How long will it be before you guys get married, anyway?”
“Now, I don’t know anymore,” I sigh. “We thought we had a plan, to get through this year and get together in August. And then we’d make our engagement public to my family, while continuing to save for our future for one more year. That was before the cancer, and now I don’t see how we can possibly go ahead with that plan when it’d break Grandma to hear this, especially since she was the one who advised me so vehemently against Fred.”
“That’s tough. And I never quite got round to telling you how sorry I am about your grandma, you know, the cancer and all. Are you sure she won’t come around, though? She might change her mind. In fact, it might make her happier to see you settle down with someone you really care for.”
“I wish,” I say, pensively. “But I know she won’t change her mind, not when she used such strong words to tell me exactly what she thought about me and Fred being together. ‘You’re throwing your life away if you think that’s the best you can do in a match,’ is what she said to me, and those words are going to stay with me forever. They’re the most horrible words I’ve ever heard her say about anyone. Back then, I was nineteen, and it was the summer after freshman year. All through spring semester, I told her little bits of things about Fred when I called home from college: how there was this boy I really liked, who was a friend at first until he became more than a friend. But she didn’t think much of it; to her, dating someone when you’re nineteen is almost like a high school romance, and she expected it to fizzle out in weeks, or at most, months. It was only when you and I didn’t get together and she blamed Fred for it, that she realized exactly how serious I already was about him at the time, and then she tried to talk me into dating other people. She said the wise and responsible thing to do would be for me not to get into a committed relationship yet and keep my options open – I was still young after all, and I’d have plenty of chances to meet other boys out there who could be more compatible with me when I was ready to settle down. As you can imagine, she wasn’t happy at all to find out that he’s black, but there’s even more to it – he grew up in the ‘hood with a single mom who passed away, and she believed he might find college too hard in the end – that he’d end up dropping out and going back to the ‘hood, maybe even getting into drugs or gangs or worse. I knew she was underestimating him, because I went to class with him every day and I could see how smart, disciplined, and motivated he is. Then she pointed out that even if he graduated, which he did, I would still need to choose somebody to settle down with when I got older, and if I didn’t give him up at that point, I’d end up being a military wife. She talked a lot about how hard the lives of military spouses are, and how I shouldn’t squander all the opportunities that the family gave me to have a better future than that. She said it’d be hard for me to get good jobs because I’d have to keep moving to different places, and there’d be long times when I wouldn’t be able to see him, just like now. And that furthermore, he might not always be lucky – what if he never came back at all, or if he came back with a disabling injury or was mentally scarred for good? I told her I thought it would all be worth it, because when you truly care about somebody, you promise to go through thick and thin, through sickness and health. Like what I’m doing with her right now. Of all the things she said, there’s only one I kind of agree with. Which is,
when
I marry Frederick, the family strife is going to tear all of us apart. You know Father. He… I can’t put it any other way, he isn’t always a reasonable man. And he’s the one who doesn’t need any other reason to go ballistic except that Frederick is black and from the ‘hood, and therefore, to his mind, beneath the Elliot family. It’d be ugly, but I’d be willing to go through all of that if Grandma were well. Now that she’s sick, I couldn’t possibly do that to her and spoil the rest of her life. I don’t know what I’m waiting for, or how I want it to play out, because Fred and Grandma are tearing me in two different directions, but I – I just can’t bear to let go of Fred, even if it’s selfish of me.”
“Wow,” says Charles. “That’s
some
story. Now I know I never stood a chance, not against
that
. Just know I’ll do anything I can to help you out, and whatever you want to do with the car, I’ll work something out for you.”
Ever since I’ve been domiciled in Grandma’s guest bedroom, I’ve started calling Fred at night again; it’s been sheer misery to have our only presence in each other’s lives reduced to a series of texts. After Grandma’s fallen asleep, I burrow my entire body headfirst under the coverlet and plug my ear buds into my cell phone before I talk to him, so she won’t be able to hear us. Because I’m now on Eastern time while he’s in Central, I bear the main brunt of the sleep deprivation, but still, neither of us are able to go to bed as early as we should whenever we talk. When sleep-deprived drivers are already supposed to be the equivalent of DUIs, I don’t want to think about what a sleep-deprived fighter pilot would be like, but we have no alternative since I don’t have any privacy when Grandma’s awake. We try to make the most of Friday and Saturday nights, when he doesn’t have training the next day, unless there’s something we absolutely need to talk about on a work night for him. Which is tonight, because I need to check in with him before I deal with the car.
“I’ve made a sad decision,” I tell him, “I think I’m going to have to junk the Pontiac after all. All this while I’ve been trying to keep it, to remember old times with, but I can’t drive it around without renewing the tabs and it isn’t fair to ask anyone to store it for me for free, so I guess I have to let it go.”
“You mean, you haven’t junked that clunker yet?” Fred is amused, rather than regretful. “I’ve gotta admit, everyone has a soft spot for their first car, and I’m no exception. Still, a few hundred dollars is nothing to sneeze at, and our memories of college will stay with us, whether we have the car or not. In fact, I didn’t renew the tabs on purpose last year since I knew I won’t need that car over here and I thought you’d junk it for me, so I hope AJ’s parents didn’t get that bill. The car’s registered to their place.”
“AJ’s parents? Oops, I guess it’s really embarrassing to say this, but I gotta own my rich-girl problems, I suppose. Frankly, I didn’t even remember you had to pay tabs for cars until today; I guess Father has been paying for mine all along. So, I’ve been driving a car with expired tabs, that legally belongs to your brother-in-law, all around the Puget Sound area for half a year, but my supreme luck held up and nobody pulled me over.”
“Nobody would ever think of pulling you over, Anne,” says Fred, laughing even harder. “You’re such a prim and proper driver, and you never deviate from the speed limit more than two miles per hour either way. That’s why you’re perfect for living on base, you’ll probably be the only spouse who can last a whole year without getting a single ticket. Anyway. You’ll want to print out that email I sent you when you junk the car, so they know AJ gave you power of attorney to sell it for him. You should still have it – I sent it to your personal email address instead of the MIT one, since they were shutting our school email accounts down.”
He's thought of every little thing, and that’s him, a quintessential military man: thorough, precise and methodical. I find the email and give Charles the printout, feeling as if I’m sending my favorite pet to the vet to get it put down, and he brings back a check for two hundred dollars. When I ask Fred how to wire the money to him, he tells me to keep it instead because now, I’m the one who isn’t getting any pay at the moment.
Strangely, Fred and even Charles are more sensitized to my lack of finances than I am; it’s true that Fred’s now technically richer than me because he’s getting officer grade pay and has nowhere to spend it, whereas I’ve had zero income for more than four months and my bank account is slowly hemorrhaging from cell phone bills. The only reason why my savings aren’t drying up faster is because I’ve been charging everything to Father’s credit card; pretty much all of my expenditure involves Grandma to a certain extent, with the cancer books being the only things I bought just for myself. Now that it fully sinks in just how precarious my financial independence is, I start looking for jobs in earnest, and thankfully Northwest has its hub here in Detroit so it isn’t difficult for an aeronautical engineer to get decent work at the airport.
“We’re both matching minions in overalls now,” I tell Fred gleefully when I start work. “It’s a pity we won’t be able to meet the others in San Francisco for Halloween, or else we won’t even need costumes.”
Things fall into a routine schedule again – Mr. Hill takes Grandma to her maintenance therapy sessions, accompanied by either Sarah or Jemima, and I stop by to speak to the doctors and pick Grandma up whenever I can get out of work to go there. Our maids take turns to come over to Grandma’s to do chores, and I make dinner and do the laundry in the evenings after I get home, while also keeping track of Grandma’s medications. Fred and I become distant mirror images of each other, both of us spending our days clad in aviator jumpsuits, puttering around in hangars and airfields, albeit one time zone and fifteen hundred miles apart. For now, my life goes back into a stable holding pattern; I’ve arrested the free fall and am holding steady, even if just barely, at a new cruising altitude.
In the middle of the 100-degree August heat, Fred graduates UPT. This time instead of gold bars, he gets his first pair of wings. That’s one even greater achievement, topping even the day of our college graduation and his commissioning ceremony; yet he was all alone, with no special person to pin his new wings on – not Sophia, who’s in Guam, not Edward, who has settled down in Shropshire, and now not even me. Now that he can finally get out of base for the first time since college, he comes up to Detroit to visit, the way we planned a year ago, but since I can’t stay with him without outing myself to Grandma, he has to go to AJ’s parents’ apartment to crash. Even though we still don’t know when we’ll break the news to my family, we want to accomplish two very important errands together, and there’s only a few precious hours we can spend together on the weekend, when I manage to trick Charles and Mary into watching Grandma for me.
Charles has started getting chummy with Mary ever since I went to Seattle; he went to college at Berkeley and completely enjoyed the hippie lifestyle there, but being the homebody that he is, he never thought of doing anything else but coming back to his family business after he graduated. I don’t know if he would’ve spent that much time with her if I had been around, but since they both like to swing and she’s always looked up to him, they fell in pretty nicely with each other. From the times I’ve seen them together after I got back, it looks like Mary’s starting to get sweet on him, though he doesn’t seem to have a clue. So, I get tickets for T
he Princess Diaries
for the two of them and tell them if they come by to hang around and maybe show Grandma their swing moves for a while before the show, I’ll go off and give them a bit of time together. That makes at least two of the concerned parties immensely happy: Mary, and Grandma. Charles has been a favorite of Grandma’s ever since he was a toddler, and now that she knows I’m a totally gone case and will never couple up with him, she’s more than happy to do anything within her power to encourage him to settle down with Mary instead.
Meanwhile, I haven’t dressed up in ages; shuttling Grandma to and from chemo was every bit as brutal as my college all-nighters, if not worse, so I lived in comfort clothing: joggers, sweatshirts, and Chuck Taylors. Even though I was dressing like a student again, that didn’t keep me from feeling old inside; I feel all the worry lines on my face even though I can’t actually see them in the mirror. To avoid raising suspicion with Mary and Grandma, I keep a light touch to my attire: trying to add a little colour to my face with minimalist make-up (and hoping I’m successful) and pairing a cute floral top with my dressiest DKNY jeans.
We meet at Fairlane Town Centre in Dearborn; after all,
the
ring is a special enough thing that we want to get it at a nice shop, and this place is upscale enough without being pretentious. It’s even better that Dearborn’s clear across the other side of Detroit, so we shouldn’t run into anyone from Grosse Pointe who might gossip back to Father. When we see each other, I launch myself into his arms as if I was welcoming him home at the airport after a long time away, the way I wish I could have done. Fred is about as nicely dressed as I’d ever seen him, save for the times when he wore his dress uniform; he’s wearing a casual but stylish long sleeve shirt even though it’s over 80 degrees outside, nice jeans, and lace-up dress shoes. We kind of match in our attire, and if you didn’t know us, you’d think we were any two young professionals going out on a regular weekend date, not star-crossed lovers trying to make the most of a teeny reprieve in an unending period of separation.
“You always look even more beautiful every time I see you,” he tells me, though I know it isn’t true at all, and especially not when I feel like I’ve aged eight years in the past eight months. Like always, I tell him he’s the better looking half of us, and the only reason why he thinks I look good is because he’s biased. And then he denies it and pulls me in a little closer. This has been our routine for years, and it feels good to fall back into that familiar pattern again. Every time we get together now will be one more to hang onto, as I’ll store up each time together for the times when we’re apart, when my trove of memories will be all I have of him.
Our first mode of operations is to stop at all the jewelry stores in the mall to look at rings. I’m not the kind of girl who makes rules about how many months’ salary my man should spend on his engagement ring, and he believes in having an emergency fund in the bank rather than me wearing our life savings on my finger (and probably becoming a walking target to get mugged, since I’m living in Detroit after all). Why we try on so many rings, is because we need to get something that fits on my tiny fourth finger, when my hands aren’t much bigger than a child’s. Finally, we end up with a single half-carat diamond set on a slender, wavy silver band, simple yet delicate and elegant. We need to get the jeweler to do another thing for us too – an Air Force pilot doesn’t wear his first pair of wings; it’s supposed to be bad luck, though I don’t really understand why. I whip out the cute little Sony Cyber-shot camera Grandma got me last summer and snap a photo of our upturned palms, his dark hand beside my fair one, holding the intricately carved pewter wings, so perfect and so beautiful, before we get the jeweler to score them down the middle. Then he takes one end and I take the other, and we snap it apart as if we’re breaking a wishbone. I make a little wish as we break the wings apart, that he’ll stay safe, and that I’ll be able to steal many more moments like this together with him. Because I can’t wear the ring on my finger if I don’t want Father and Grandma to find out, we get a hole bored into my half of the wings, and a chain for me to wear my ring and the wing around my neck, hidden under the neckline of my top.
After we buy the ring, we have about an hour left before I need to drive home to be back with Grandma before Charles and Mary go out on their date. That means we have time to stop at Coffee Beanery, and unlike how we used to share just one Venti size drink every time we went to Starbucks in our college days, now Fred can treat me to fancy coffee and sandwiches without him feeling the pinch or me feeling guilty. He puts the ring on my finger, so I can wear it and we can show our engagement to the world for just this little while before I have to go undercover again.
“Anne, you’ve been the making of me, and I don’t want to spend my life with anyone but you. One year ago, you told me you’ll marry me, and I want to follow through with that, when – when the circumstances will allow. It
will
happen, and you will be with me someday. Till then, whenever you look at this ring, think of me.”
It will happen
– though all these months, neither of us have ever broached what “it” is, even though Fred has never wavered that he’ll go through
it
with me. Fred’s confident pronouncements that we will make it together are tainted with guilt and grief for me, because we both know exactly what must happen for us to finally forge ahead with our marriage. Our togetherness and Grandma’s demise, both tied together like this – to have one, I must lose the other. Y
ou can’t have your cake and eat it, Anne
, I think to myself, that thin but hard veneer of bittersweet lacing even the moment that should be the sweetest one in my life, when my fiancé has my hand in his and is slipping our engagement ring on my finger. And yet, I know, he’s completely right; Grandma’s eventual passing will be inevitable, no matter how unreal it feels right now, and Fred and I will have to weather this, and many other things in the future, together side by side, in spirit even if not necessarily in body.
When we embrace and share a last, long kiss outside my car in the parking lot, I don’t want to let go – all the times in the past, I knew exactly when we’d see each other again, but this is the first time that neither of us can truly say when the next time will be. He’ll have times when he’s on leave, and the next time will definitely be less than a year from now, and maybe it isn’t prudent to splurge on an air ticket every time he has leave, but at least we can strive for more than once a year, at least. Yet being a fighter pilot is a profession with more uncertainty than most; I don’t want to think about
if
, rather than
when
, so that is another thought I tuck at the back of my mind, trying to bury it away before it festers. Just like the thought about Grandma.
After I parallel park along the road outside Grandma’s house, carefully choosing a spot where nobody can see me from the driveway, I slip the ring off my finger and string it onto the chain with my half of Fred’s wings. I hold the chain and wing in my hand, gazing at it for a long while, before fastening the chain around my neck and hiding it away – out of sight, but never out of mind.
If I thought I was cruising along again, I was wrong; it doesn’t take long for my world to be shaken up with another bout of turbulence. Father’s income has been a black box to me all along and given the way nothing has ever been denied us materially, I hope I can be forgiven for having thought it was limitless in the past. Only until now, I never realized just how mistaken I could possibly be.
After work one muggy August night, Grandma sits me down at the dining table. It’s one of her better days, and she holds herself with the perfect composure and dignity I’ve always remembered and admired. All through these days since the diagnosis, every time Grandma leaves her room she’ll always be properly dressed in the same tailored blouse and pants outfits she always wears, with the Blanche wig I got her covering her thinning hair and her makeup impeccably done.
“Anne, dear,” she says to me, “we’ve got work to do. When your mom was alive, she used to make sure your father was temperate in his spending, but she’s been gone for almost twenty years now, and since then there hasn’t been anyone keeping him in check. Mr. Shepherd told him he’s maxed out all his credit card debt, and we need to put together a plan to make sure all of us stay within our income from now on. And I believe we can come up with a workable plan if we do it together – after all, you’ve always had your mother’s good sense.”
When we total up the family income, it’s no mean sum – after all, Father gets dividends from his shares in ELMSCO, though these have slowly dwindled since the Big Three started losing market share to Japanese autos all through the ‘80s and the ‘90s, which is why his income started to get smaller while his spending habits remained the same. Then he gets interest income from a huge portfolio of investments, and Grandma has quite a few unit trusts of her own too. Apparently, Father and Liz have told Mr. Shepherd they’ll cut off some of their charity donations and will also nix their plans to redo the entire house in contemporary style, but that isn’t enough because it doesn’t touch any of their huge, repeating lifestyle expenditures. Grandma says Mr. Shepherd thinks seven years is a realistic timeframe for Father to pay back his debts, so we should split the deficit, with interest, over that period of time and subtract it from the income to get the baseline amount we can afford to spend. But I’m aghast; how can we possibly be in the hole for
seven years
? By then, I’ll be thirty, an age I can hardly imagine. Instead, I tell Grandma, we should just live like a regular middle-class family from now on, and that will get us clear as soon as possible if we take the rest of the income and use it to pay off the debts.
I draw a line down the middle of a sheet of college-ruled paper and start making out a list of “Essentials” and “Non-Essentials”. Of course, Grandma’s medical expenses are the first item under “Essentials”, and after that, I multiply my college grocery budget with Fred by four and put that amount in for food. For transportation, I figure we really only need two cars, and we can’t afford a chauffeur; this means Liz, Mary and Father will have to chip in with ferrying Grandma to and from her doctor’s appointments, but if we all do our part it should be feasible. And we can then replace Liz’s BMW Z3, Mary’s Chrysler PT Cruiser, and Father’s fleet of luxury cars – a Chrysler 300M, a Lincoln Town Car, a Cadillac Eldorado and a Maybach stretch limo – with a fuel-sipping Honda Civic. I’ll keep my Golf because it has good fuel economy, and we’ll figure out a way for the five of us to carpool each other around. And if all of us do our part with laundry and dishes, then it might be possible for us to function without any full-time household staff, but I budget in some money for a cleaning lady to come into each of our homes two times a week and a local high school boy to mow our lawns every fortnight, especially since Grandma shouldn’t be helping with chores.
It's a tough choice to put Mr. Hill, Sarah and Jemima into the list of “Non-Essentials” when they’ve been with us so long that they’re almost a part of the family, but there’s no way we can afford them and clear the debt at the same time. And Liz, Mary and I all have enough clothes to last us for three or four years, so clothes shopping goes into the “Non-Essentials” list too. As do fancy restaurants, exotic holidays, and summer vacation home rentals, though it’s a moot point for me when my new life with Grandma has no room for any of those things anyway.
“Don’t be naïve, child,” says Grandma, shaking her head slightly as she gently chides me. “I know you’re a good girl and you want to help the family. But how can your father build trust with clients if they see him downsizing like this? They’ll know his business isn’t doing well and that will make them think twice about working with him. And besides, we’re in Grosse Pointe, and he has to keep some face, to maintain his dignity in front of the neighbors.”
My list doesn’t see the light of day, not when even Grandma’s seven-year list gets thrown out by Father. He blusters about how insupportable it is to do without all the niceties of life when he’s got the Elliot family pride to maintain, and after rounds and rounds of ranting, he finally declares that if this is what he needs to do, he might as well move out of Grosse Pointe altogether.
“Actually, relocating might not be a bad idea,” says Mr. Shepherd. “If you move into a stylish city apartment, you can enjoy a chic, urban lifestyle without being saddled with all the expenses that come with maintaining a big house. Think of it as the modern, ‘in’ thing to do. And if you rent out the house, you’ll be able to earn more income.”
“Father,
please
say you’ll set us all up at our penthouse in the Upper West Side,” says Liz. “It’ll be great to live somewhere with decent shopping for once, and Motor City is
so
boring.”
Great. Wonderful. New York, Boston and Chicago all have to be off the list if we want to stop Liz from blowing off the rest of the family savings at Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus or Filene’s, but I’m so not going to open my mouth when nobody’s going to listen to my opinions anyway.
“Maybe you could consider something else,” suggests Mr. Shepherd. “How about getting a chic condo unit in Florida? It’s the place for
the
fashionable retiree set, and you’ll have plenty of lifestyle options to keep yourselves entertained. And you can upkeep your home easily without the need for full-time staff, which will keep your costs manageable.”
It takes Father a few days to sleep on the idea, but he finally acquiesces. After all, he says, he’s turning fifty-five so it’s high time he starts enjoying his retirement. Selling the penthouse apartment that he bought on the Upper West Side when Liz started at Barnard will free up enough money for him to buy a nice condo in Florida and have some cash left over. In the meantime, Liz can’t wait to start living it up by the beach in sunny Florida, and we figure the rent we get from the big house will more than pay for short term rental housing, so Father decides to make the move right away.
“Well, I’m staying here,” says Grandma. “I’m too old to move across the country, and besides, I want to live out the rest of my days at my old home. Anne, we’ll manage quite acceptably together here, won’t we?”
“Sure, we will,” I affirm. There’s plenty of reasons for me to want to stay: some distance between myself and Father’s judgmental presence can’t hurt, I have a job and an income here, and it’s good for Grandma to remain in her home and not have to switch doctors again, now that we’ve set up a plan.
“If you’re staying, I’m staying too,” says Mary. “I don’t wanna leave when I’ve just started making new friends in college. It was hard enough leaving all my friends from high school behind, and I don’t wanna move away and have to do it all over again.” And Charles, of course, I think, but again, I keep discreetly silent.
Father’s move means we have yet another round of logistics to deal with: I shift my belongings to Mom’s old childhood room, so the more generous guest bedroom can go to Mary. After all, I’d pared everything I had down to the bare minimum when I went to college, whereas Mary never really left the big house since she enrolled in the local community college after graduating from SEM. Because it’s our fault that Mr. Hill, Sarah, and Jemima don’t have full-time jobs with us anymore, I try to find a soft landing for them. Fred helps by asking AJ’s parents to pass on leads through him to me; AJ’s mom has been working as a cleaning lady for years, so she has a network to find out exactly which rich families in the area are looking for new staff. We pack up everything in Mary’s room and rent a U-Haul for Mr. Hill to drive over to Grandma’s before he leaves us, with him and Charles working together to carry all her stuff inside. And I need someone to be with Grandma and accompany her to her appointments during the day when I’m at work, so I ask Sarah and Jemima to take turns to come back on an hourly basis while finding other part-time work for them with other families, paying them higher than market rates because of their medical caregiving duties and the fact that they’ll need to rent their own homes now instead of living with us. The money for Sarah and Jemima’s hours with us comes straight out of my pay, but thankfully Mr. Shepherd and Father have agreed that Grandma’s medical bills will go into his new budget, something that Father has triple-underlined in the latest budget document.
After Father and Liz have gone off to Palm Beach, I go over to the big house for one last time to give it a once-over and clear out the stuff in my childhood bedroom before Mr. Shepherd puts it onto the rental market. With everyone else having moved on to their new residences, all the rest of the furniture has either been moved or sold; stripped bare of everything except the drapes, the huge parlor yawns at me, looking dated even with just the unadorned flooring and walls. Of course – Father and Mom bought and decorated this place when they married in the ‘70s, before they had us; no wonder Father was thinking of a full re-do before his financial constraints stopped him cold in his tracks. My old pink walls look dusky and dirty, and the movie posters I pinned up on top of the wallpaper are all faded and peeling, the edges curling up at the sides. The four-poster bed frame, once shiny and bright, is flecked with black tarnish, and the candy-striped linens have faded to a nondescript shade of off-white. All of my painted wooden furniture already had a vintage tinge to it on purpose, but now there are tiny yellowish spots on everything. The books on my shelf are all well worn and thumbed over, the deep ridges on the spine of
Pride and Prejudice
betraying just how many times I read it during my middle school years. Everything here is a relic, belonging to the ghost of the eighth grader that I was when I last lived in this room, for I took everything that was of any use to me along when I went away to SEM and then to college.
Before I tear them off the walls, I take a long, hard look at all the posters one last time, for they represent my childhood fantasies of love.
Pretty Woman
.
The Little Mermaid
.
Beauty and the Beast
.
When Harry Met Sally
.
Far and Away
.
The Princess Bride
. Back then, I knew my sisters and I were raised to be divas and princesses, only I never quite felt equal to taking up that mantle. And the fairy tales taught me to expect that someday a man, tall and rich and white and handsome, would sweep me off my feet because he’d be thoroughly entranced by my perfect looks, perfect manners and perfect virtue. He’d show up gallantly on a snow-white steed, grant me every single wish I had, and we would have our happily ever after together, swirling away to a never-never-land of unending bliss. There’d be hot, steamy kisses to the tune of
Unchained Melody
and bold, soulful declarations in the style of
(Everything I Do) I Do It For You
. Yet I was never the striking beauty that Liz was; I wasn’t a pageant girl or a ballerina; rather, I’ve been more of a Jane Eyre than a Jane Bennet, all my life. Still, I daydreamed about a clean-cut, dashing suitor who would make my skin tingle and my heart flutter, running through a series of crushes on Tom Cruise, River Phoenix, Kevin Costner, and Bryan Adams the year I was in eighth grade. Since I never drew anymore after failing fifth-grade art, there’s no solid evidence of those fantasies, which all played in Technicolor in my head after school as I read my Austen novels right in this very room, casting my latest film or pop hero in the leading role as I filled in the blanks with little side scenes I made up along the way.
Nobody could have told me that this eighth-grader would someday find earth-shaking love in the form of a wing, a ring, an aircraft model and a promise inked in Sharpie. That the eventual hero of my life wouldn’t show up to sweep me away on a white horse, but instead, he’d come seeking cover at my dorm because he had no conducive place to study on campus since his own digs lacked any privacy whatsoever. That he wouldn’t look anything like any of the men in the posters on the walls of this room; instead, he’d be lean and lanky, all sinew, with an earnest face and big black winsome eyes, full of vigor and spirit. That before he escorted me to our first ball (yes, ROTC had a military ball every year, of all the antiquities you could ever think of) we’d have already seen each other hundreds of times in ratty T-shirts and sweats and running gear. That we’d end up bonding over all-nighters and food-truck meals and grueling runs at the crack of dawn, not courting at soirees and nights out at the opera. That true love is about two imperfect people appreciating the best of each other despite our flaws, because it doesn’t matter that he’s not a prince and I’m not a princess when I just need him to be Frederick and it’s enough for him that I am Anne. And that after the proposal, after the ending credits roll and it’s happily-ever-after, there’ll still be the long, hard, mundane slog of life to get through. But then, nobody ever told my eighth-grade self either that not a decade away, my entire life as I knew it would completely disintegrate, and this man would be the only constant anchoring me to happier days, the only person holding me up even if you put all the distance in the world between us.
You’re throwing your life away if you think that’s the best you can do in a match
. Even after four whole years the words rankle, for they’re a fault line driving a permanent crack into my relationship with Grandma. All my life, I’ve been something of a misfit in this family, being the only person who took after Mom instead of Father; and now that I’m forced into this boomerang situation, every day I have to live as a stranger in my own family. But with Frederick, I’m never a stranger; he understands me and what I need because he more or less wants and needs the same things too: to chase his goals, to do the right thing by the people whom he loves, and to have someone by his side who will always believe in him. How can it possibly be throwing away my life to choose the one person in my life who not only acknowledges, but supports and celebrates my very personhood? Yet I can’t tell Grandma this, because she sacrificed her retirement years to raise my sisters and me; I owe her too much to ever defy her openly to her face. Even if there had been no cancer diagnosis, I’d wanted to play it cautious, to establish our respectability first and build Grandma’s confidence in us before we get married. And now, I can’t possibly tear the family apart with Grandma being ill, nor can I stand for her to pass away feeling disappointed in me.
Love is patient and kind
, the Bible says.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things
. Love is supposed to be about purity, virtue and charity; yet here I am, selfish and duplicitous. Hiding my engagement away from all my family and secretly biting the hand that feeds me, while being a burden to the one man who’s devoted to my welfare and happiness. All this while, even in the times when we’ve been only able to speak through texts, even though we now need to go incommunicado for days whenever Fred has temporary duty assignments, he’s done all the simple, inconspicuous things that make all the difference. Like giving me a book that reminds me of
me
, a salve to my identity as a sports-loving twentysomething, when I’m forced to subjugate it to the needs and duties that cancer in the family brings. Or realizing that our servants, the persona non grata who have no stories, no lines and no personalities in the books I used to read, are also
people
and it isn’t fair to take their entire livelihoods away just because Father spent too much to keep them with us. All these little things, the things that won’t make it into the movies, are the ones that move me the most, and I feel terrible about not being able to do anything back for him except to distract him into an accident. Yet here I am, hanging on and playing both sides, for I cannot be perfectly honorable to either one of them without dishonoring the other even more.
A fine person you are, Anne
, I tell myself,
and this is why they say that mankind is sinful in nature
.
Nobody ever told the innocent eighth grader who lived in this room that life cannot be split into black and white, good and bad; that no matter how you try to be a kind and good person, you’ll still end up becoming a leeching, lying creature all the same. That reality is the enemy of perfection, and once you think you’ve taken care of something, another thing is going to pop up and hit you in the face. That one of the things you shouldn’t ever promise to someone you love is never to let them down, because when you have to make choices between the two people you love most in the world, you’re probably going to end up letting both of them down no matter what you do.
I pack up that eighth grader and put her in a box; there isn’t a lot of space at Grandma’s, so I only take the books I liked best, including that worn-out copy of
Pride and Prejudice
, the rhinestone-studded sneakers I wore to Disneyland, and the box of character erasers I collected during my years of Lower School. Except for the posters, which aren’t good for anything except the trash, I pack everything else up carefully into more boxes and label them, then leave them in the room together with the empty furniture; come Monday, I’ll call the Salvation Army and ask them to pick everything up so that other little girls who need this stuff can have it. Sealing up that one box that I take with me to my car, I walk out of the room that I grew up in for the very last time, leaving it, with its pale blue painted sky, to bear witness to the fluffy gossamer dreams of another young girl, and hoping that for her, they won’t all turn out to be just illusions forged in thin air, the way they were for me.
Posted on 2022-04-01
Part II – Chapter 6 (Anne)
September 11 2001, Detroit Wayne County Airport, Michigan
With my own life precariously shaken, the next shock to hit is one that upends our entire nation and possibly the world. Normally, the TV in the break room plays on, silently and unobtrusively looping CNN as we putter around barely aware of its presence; but on this workaday Tuesday morning, the images of the news literally explode in our faces as the South Tower gets hit, live, right before our very eyes. This can’t be – I’ve only seen such destruction in movies and on TV before, but yet, this is real. Even though it feels strangely surreal when I see the twin towers crumbling in smoke, I know it is real when I see the images of the firefighters on the ground with all the gnarled debris covered in grey soot. The towers keep crumbling in noxious clouds of black smoke all throughout the day, the footage playing back over and over again, and we stand riveted and unmoving, all else forgotten for the moment. Work feels irrelevant, when nearly three thousand people have lost their lives, and the very existence of our country feels threatened with the hit on the Pentagon. We see ordinary New Yorkers, office workers who were going about a day that was supposed to be just like any other, turned out on the streets escaping the wasteland that, just hours ago, stood proud as the World Trade Centre. Tears roll down my cheeks as I mourn the injustice of too many lives snuffed out in an instant, too quickly and too soon; and at the same time, I wonder, now what? What – or who – will be next? Is anyone safe at all, especially when we are here in an airport, not much different from the ones from which these instruments of devastation came? Suddenly, everything that was safe, everything that was hopeful, has vanished; the times when I was a child and then a student, when I wanted to travel far and wide and every new plane ride, every new city was a vista of adventures and possibilities, feels very far away, almost as if it was a dream. I realize that until this day, I have taken my safety and security for granted, and for days and weeks afterward, as the nightmarish footage runs incessantly on network news, I can’t peel my eyes away. It haunts my days and nights, adding one more tally to the things that are irreversible, another part of the world I grew up in gone forever.
Nobody at home talks about the events of 9-11, even though it leaves its imprint on all of us. Mary asks me to sleep with her in her room at night, and though Grandma maintains an air of perfect composure, I see her sneaking peeks at her old black-and-white photo albums, semi-absently thumbing through pictures of her and Grandpa before they got married, when she was just a little younger than I am now, and World War II had yet to wreak havoc on her innocence. Maybe Mom was lucky after all, I think, for history has repeated itself two generations apart, and Mom was the only one of us sandwiched forever in that middle period, who only ever saw a world in forward motion: the post-war Baby Boom, the beginning of the Jet Age, the hippie era – and then there were the things she didn’t fully get to see, like the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the demise of apartheid, and the Digital Revolution. And what about my generation? We lived our childhoods only knowing a world that was growing safer, smarter, and richer, a world where people live longer and longer – and now, as we have barely stepped into adulthood, we find ourselves threatened with this new spectre, a stark reminder that in a war, lives are cheap.
“Maybe I ought to back out of active service,” says Fred on the phone one night, as talk mounts on the news about launching a military response to the attacks. “I could try to get myself into the Reserves, or the National Guard, and serve out my ROTC commitment there instead. With all this going on, it’ll be a matter of time before I get deployed, and I don’t want to leave you here all on your own.”
“You can’t,” I point out. “When you did UPT, that ship already sailed. If you break your contract, you’ll have to pay thousands of dollars in damages, and it’d ruin your reputation, your career, and your entire future. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”
And then I take a deep breath, before I carry on speaking, saying the hardest things I ever thought I’d have to say. “I’m never going to forget the day the twin towers fell. You won’t, and I don’t think any of us who saw it ever will. All this – it happened right in
our
world, desecrating places that were an actual part of our lives. Father used to bring me and my sisters up those towers when we were little and show us the view from the restaurant on top, whenever we went to New York for the weekend or the holidays.
We
spent years living and studying in Boston, just miles away from Logan Airport. What they did was sense - ” I almost say the word “senseless”, then stop dead in my tracks, for what must the lives of those people who did this be like, if they were driven to such desperation that they wanted to end the lives of thousands of people and their own by slamming a plane into a building? There has to be a reason for people to be driven to the belief that they had nothing to live for anymore, and if we think we’re entitled to a life of peace and safety, so should everybody else around the world be as well. Only that’s not the case, and it’s warped, cruel and unfair. “Nobody deserves to go to their office in the morning, perfectly fine and healthy, and then never get to go home and see their children again. Now that the military has given you all this training, I have to accept that it’s your duty to go out there and defend our safety, to do your best to make sure this doesn’t ever happen again. You have to, and I will bear it, as best as I can.”
“You’re right,” acknowledges Fred reluctantly. “I’ve got no choice, and I can’t answer to my conscience if I ducked out of this moral obligation. But still, it really bothers me that you’re already having to worry about your grandma and your dad, and now you’ll have to worry about me too, with nobody around to help you.”
“But will you promise me one thing?” he continues. “I’ve told Sophia and Edward all about you, and given them your email, your phone number, and your address so they can call and write to you. They’ve probably each already mailed you a letter with their picture, like I told them to, so you can get to know them. From now on, they’re your brother and sister too, and anytime you need something, don’t hesitate to call them.”
“Thank you, Fred,” I say; I’m so touched, I can barely find words. “When I get their letters, I promise I’ll write back telling them everything about me, and it’ll be wonderful to finally get to know them, after all the great things you’ve told me about your family. But why now? Why didn’t you tell them about me before?”
“Because now is when I know we’ll last,” comes his reply in barely audible tones. “I was really terrified you’d leave me after we had to go our separate ways after college, especially when you moved back into your family home. It was only when I came up last month, and you went out with me to get that ring, that it all felt real again, and I knew for sure that you’re also in it for the long haul.”
“Of course, I am,” I assure him. “I hope you know – I want you to know – that all the way since freshman year, ever since we were just nineteen, I was already sure that you’re the only man I want in my life, and it’ll always be that way. Don’t ever doubt it, not ever again.”
Father’s tenants move in on the 29th of September, and even though we have all settled in at Grandma’s, that day still makes us all feel a little sad when we think about giving up the big house.
“I’m extremely thankful that your father is finally living within his means,” says Grandma primly, “but it’s such a pity that Walter and Elizabeth are so far away, and our family is all scattered about now. The house used to be so dignified and respectable, and it was such a pleasant time when we were all together as an extended family. After all of you grew up, Elizabeth and Mary hardly ever want to have family time anymore, and you’ve been away for so long. It’s been a very long time since the five of us even sat down properly together for dinner. But now, all I can hope for is that the new tenants will take as good care of the house and garden as we used to do.”
“Grandma, please don’t be too sad about it,” I console her. “I mean, I really miss my old room, because the sky on the ceiling is all I have left to remember Mom with, but we all have to move forward, and if Father and Liz are happier saving money in Florida than they are here, we’ll have fewer disagreements in the family, which will make all of us happier in the long run. Besides, you have me here to keep you company now, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Anne, it’s wonderful to have you here, but have you been thinking about your future? Ever since you came back, you’ve hardly gone anywhere except to work and coming back home again. I’m feeling so good these days, that you really don’t have to worry about me so much. You should go out more and meet more people; you haven’t met anybody new ever since you got out of school, and I hope you’ll find someone who appreciates you.”
“I have all the friends I need, Grandma,” I assure her. “Right now, my priority is to be here with you, and to make a home out of this house for you, Mary and me.”
“But don’t you ever think about finding someone suitable to settle down with, Anne?” she asks. “You’ve finished your education, and a kind, loving girl like you must be happiest if you could start your own family. I wish you had someone – if you could marry a nice-looking boy from a good background, it would put my mind so much more at ease. I’d worry a lot less about you if you had somebody to provide for you and give you some companionship, someone with a gentle personality like yours, because your father neglected you so dreadfully. He never gave you a fair share of his attention when you were a child, and it pained me so much that I doted on you all the more for it. Of course, it would be even more perfect if you could establish yourself somewhere nearby so we all can stay close, and I can still dote on you from time to time.”
“I have plenty of time, Grandma,” I parry. “I’m only twenty-three, and most of my friends aren’t thinking of marriage yet either. And I made so many new friends in college – remember all the people who sent me birthday presents this year?’
“Sometimes, I wonder if we made the right decision to let you go to MIT,” remarks Grandma. “Those were the best years for you to find your life partner, but even though MIT must have been wonderful for intellectual stimulation, everyone knows that smart people aren’t necessarily the most social ones. And you missed your chance to meet a nice boy in college; when we talked about it after your first year there, I advised you to open your horizons and date more people, but you never found anyone after that. Maybe it’s because all the young men at MIT are – what do you youngsters call it, nerds? Socially awkward. That’s the reason why we sent you girls to prep school, to help you develop your social skills and meet the right people.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘geek’, Grandma,” I say, trying to hide my defensiveness behind a cheeky façade. It’s exquisitely ironic how wrong she is in her assumption about the dearth of suitable life partner candidates at a place like MIT, though I suppose it’s better for her to remain mistaken than to get a rude shock with the truth. “A geek is a nerd who’s into tech stuff. Yeah, there were a lot of those people there, but not everyone’s a geek at MIT, either. I had a lot of great fun, and I learned a lot too. MIT is where I had some of the best memories of my life, and I’ll never regret going there.”
“Well, perhaps it isn’t too late now for you to start building your social network,” says Grandma. “Winter is coming, and you could consider spending a weekend in Florida after it turns cold over here. I’m healthy enough for you not to need to watch over me all the time, and it’ll be good for your health and spirits to have some warmer weather and meet new people.”
“Grandma, I’m not sure that would necessarily make me happy,” I point out. “I’ve never really liked Florida, somehow the vibe there is a bit – artificial. You know,
Barbie Girl
plastic. Ugh.”
“You might change your mind, now that you’re older,” counters Grandma. “After all, you might find that you’ve outgrown the childish prejudices you had when you were a little girl, if you’ll only give it a chance. When we used to go there often, you were following us as we took Elizabeth to her pageants, and understandably, you didn’t have a good time when all the attention was on your sister and not on you. And I can imagine how disappointed you were when your father never kept his promises to take you to Disney World. But now it will be different, because you’re an adult and you will be moving in entirely different circles.”
Thankfully, this conversation gets interrupted by Mary bursting in from the front door before it gets any farther off the rails. “
Anne
! Isn’t this the day the tenants are moving in? Thank goodness I never looked at the calendar all day, or else I’d have been
miserable
for so many more hours. What are we gonna do, now that we don’t have a
home
anymore?”
“You do have a home, Mary,” I state dryly and matter-of-factly, pouncing on this chance to move on and change the subject. “I’m here, and so is Grandma, and you’ll always have a home with us. I promise.”
My friends from MIT are not geeks and have not forgotten me, apparently, since I get mail from Elise in Cambridge after Halloween. It’s a homemade card printed out on photo paper, with a collage of all the pictures they took partying the night out on Castro Street in their costumes, a piece of scrapbook paper pasted in with signatures from everybody, and “We miss you!” emblazoned right in the middle in a fancy font.
“Did you get one too?” I ask Fred. I wish we had video, so I can show him my card, but I figure that if they remembered me, they’d definitely remember him too.
“Yep, sure did. Just in time, too,” he says. “I’ll be able to bring it along with me.”
“Bring it along - ” I realize, with a thud, what this means. It’s hardly a surprise, when waging war in Afghanistan has been all over the news, but now that it’s real, I still can’t stop myself from feeling a little shaken up anyway. “You mean, you’re deploying?”
“Yes.” One word, with all the certainty and all the finality in it. “I’m going out next week.”
“Stay safe,” I say, trying to keep my voice as steady as I can, to be brave for him because I have to, for his sake as much as for mine. “I’ll always be here, and I’ll be praying for you.”
“I’m so sorry,” he says, in a low, sorrowful voice. “I wish you didn’t have to go through all this. It makes me feel so bad, that I never had much to give you, when you deserve so much better. You deserve the world, and I haven’t been able to do anything for you.”
“That’s not true, Fred.” My voice stops shaking, with all the conviction I feel. “Of all the people in my life, you’ve done the most for me, except for Grandma. You’ve been giving me everything you have, and everything I need, and nobody could possibly do better than that. You even shared your siblings with me, and I feel really awful that I can’t reciprocate.”
“Speaking of siblings, how’s it going with Edward and Sophia? You got their letters yet?”
“Yep, I did, and I’ve written them back with a letter from me, too. I’ll be emailing Edward and calling Sophia once a month. It’s only been just one exchange of letters, but I love them already. I wish for the day when I can really call them my siblings; they’re so much more approachable than the ones I was born with.”
“You should take it that they are your siblings, to all intents and purposes, because if all this stuff hadn’t happened, that’s what they would’ve been by now,” he says. “Or we’d be getting pretty close to it, at least. And I mean it – if anything happens on your end, just call Sophia and don’t worry about troubling her. She’ll help you, because you are practically family to her, now that we’re officially engaged. She’s agreed to be the one to stand in for me, during the times when I can’t be there for you.”
“And four months isn’t all that long,” he continues. “It’ll pass by before you know it, and then I’ll be back. Whenever I can, I’ll try to email and call from there, too.”
He does keep his word to communicate when he can, though the emails are sporadic and the calls are terse; due to the time difference, he can’t call at every opportunity, only when he’s in his barracks at a time when I’m still at work so we can avoid detection by Grandma.
But several things happen to cushion the void of Fred’s absence: the first of these is when Cheyenne comes to our house one weekend. And true to form, she brings food instead of flowers, which is the single most useful gift to any cancer household because it means that there is one less meal I need to cook. She says it was Charles who told her about Grandma’s illness and Father’s move, and so the minute she heard about it all from him, she decided she’d come to try and cheer me up. Which means he took almost half a year to send her my way after I got back from Baltimore, but I suppose it was Mary’s incessant whining about how much she misses the big house that clued him in about my potential loneliness. She’s now teaching middle-grade math and coaching track at our old school, and she’s happily living on her own in a condo by the lake. We realize we’re living only about five miles away from each other, a distance that felt huge when we were younger, but is eminently bridgeable now; every weekend, we agree, we’ll meet for an early morning run by the lakeside followed by breakfast, and she’ll get me back before Grandma rises for the day.
Next, an influx of books starts coming in, and every week I get something from someone or other in the MIT crew. They seem to be taking turns on purpose, because it’ll be Harriet, then Emma, then Benwick, then Harville; and in between, I get a stream of DVDs from Netflix, curated by Elise. Everyone has been careful not to touch anything that could be too dark or depressing in any way, and it looks as if each of them took charge of a particular genre. I read some of the books to Grandma in the evenings before bed, and during the times when Fred gets to make quick calls to me, I give him five-minute summaries of them to keep his spirits up too. I wonder when they’ll start getting too busy to do this, but the consistent stream of reading and entertainment material steadfastly keeps coming in.
Finally, Charles comes by every so often to hang out with Mary, getting her out of my hair and distracting her from her incessant moping about the loss of the big house. He gets Mary into a routine that’s almost normal – swing dancing one evening a week, hanging out at the Musgroves’ home every Sunday, and going for movies, bringing eight-year-old Hetty and Lulu along for the ones that aren’t too mature for them. Eventually, I manage to persuade Mary to give up her PT Cruiser when he starts tag-teaming me to schlep her around. In the mornings, I drop her off at college before work, sending her off with a homemade latte in a colorful insulated cup and an English muffin with piping hot bacon and egg filling every time because she’s barely managed to roll out of bed and get her clothes and makeup on before we need to leave the house. Then in the evenings, Charles picks her up and brings her back, often after they’ve spent some time hanging out together at his place or in town.
Despite all these distractions, there’ll still be times when my worries about Fred break through the carefully busy schedule I’ve set up to get me through these four long months. Mostly it’s when I’m alone in my room at night, and I unclasp the chain with his wing and my ring from around my neck, carefully putting it away in the padded faux leather box I bought specially for it as I get ready to go to bed. The tradition of the broken wing says that you break the wings apart because they’re bad luck for the pilot for as long as he’s alive; but when he dies, the two halves of the wings are supposed to be reunited with him to bring him good luck in the next life. Except at this point, in the eyes of the Air Force and their official records, I’m nothing to him. If any untoward event were to happen, I wonder how the wing I’m safekeeping could possibly find its way back to him, when they won’t know how to notify me, and all his next-of-kin are also all living outside the country. I scan the news daily for any information I can get about the state of the deployed troops (which is scarcely any) while I await his calls as a periodic assurance of his safety.
As the shortest, darkest days of the year roll in and the dreariest Christmas of my life approaches, a bright yellow letter-size envelope comes with the return address marked from Harvile. As I feel the envelope, the contents seem a little mysterious; it’s definitely too slim to be a book, and there’s hard plastic in there, maybe a CD case. When I slit it open, I find a Peanuts greeting card with all my favorite characters, and Harville has pasted in scanned and printed handwritten messages with signatures from everyone else to supplement the Christmas greetings he’s written for me. The plastic case does indeed have a CD in it after all; it’s the
Unconditional Love
single by 2Pac, and I don’t need any extraneous hints to guess whose idea it was to send that to me. The best surprise, though, is the letter on a nondescript sheet of white paper folded in half, tucked next to the CD, speaking to me across the thousands of miles that separate us. It’s a handwritten note, dated from the day before his deployment, which apparently, he sent to Harville in advance to convey to me at Christmas, so a part of him can be with me even despite the silence and the distance.
Dear Anne,
As I write this, I haven’t even left our home shores yet, and already I can no longer keep silent. My biggest wish would be to spend this Christmas together, yet the only means within my reach to speak to you is to send my words through Harville, so I can be sure they will get to you in time for Christmas Day.
I wish there was more I could do to set your mind at ease, but the only thing I can say is: this is not World War II, or even Vietnam; I believe the probability of my returning intact to you at the end of this deployment is about as high as it has ever been in history. Still, it weighs heavily on me that I’m adding to your many burdens when all I want to do is to alleviate them.
You pierce my soul with your quiet devotion to all the people you hold dear in your life. After all the hardships and sacrifices you have gone through this year, many of which were on my account, I can only offer you a heart even more your own than in the days when we were at college together, maybe more so even than when I offered the rest of my life to you on the day I received my commission, the most unforgettable day I’ve ever known.
You were the one who brought me hope at a time when I felt I was all alone in the world, by giving me a song. And now in reciprocation, I’m giving you this song for Christmas, the one that Tupac gave us to hang onto hope even beyond his grave, the one I never thought I would ever get from him during those days after his death. That was the time when I first met you, while I was still trying to make sense of my direction in life and find a sign that I’d be able to make it.
I must go, uncertain of my fate, but in the words of Tupac, ‘we must remember that tomorrow comes after the dark’, and come what may, a part of me will always remain with you. As in this song, you will always have my unconditional love, and for you alone I think and plan.
F.W.
How could I possibly recover from such a letter? If I had half an hour to process everything and allow it all to sink in, I might have been able to conduct myself with some level of calm; but in this house where I have almost zero privacy, it’s hard to find even ten minutes of solitude. Even in spite of myself, I feel overwhelmed with a cathartic kind of happiness, for somebody has finally put words to all my suffering from this year, making me feel more seen than I’ve ever felt since I set foot back in Grosse Pointe. I bask in the feelings of hope and relief that wash over me, but before I can clear my mind and start functioning again, Charles, Mary and the twins, who were building a snowman in the front yard, all come piling in through the front door.
“It’s awfully cold outside,” declares Lulu. “Anne, can you
please
make us some hot chocolate? And don’t forget the marshmallows.”
Quickly, I slip the letter into the envelope, making a mad dash for my room to stash it into the first drawer I see before heading to the kitchen. My hand can’t stop shaking as I stir the chocolate and milk in a saucepan; as I start pouring it out into the four mugs after it’s done, I’m still visibly trembling even though I hang on to the handle with both hands.
“Don’t spill it!” calls out Mary, as the twins chatter on, their high-pitched little-girl voices melding into indistinct white noise under my thoughts.
“Anne, are you sure you’re feeling OK?” asks Charles, quickly grabbing the handle and relieving me of the saucepan.
“Sorry,” I say, while I gladly relinquish the pan to him. “I – I don’t think I’m feeling too well at the moment. If it’s OK with you, I’ll take a rest in my room; I should be fine after I lie down for a little bit.”
Charles detains me, telling me I should at least get some of the hot chocolate before I go. He grabs one more mug to make five portions instead of four, drawing out the entire process as he squirts a generous dollop of whipped cream on top of each of them and then drizzles chocolate sauce a drip at a time to make perfect pencil-thin spirals around the whipped cream mounds. Then, he insists, he’ll walk me to my room to make sure I get there without spilling my drink, with the twins tagging along behind us, audibly smacking their lips as they enjoy their chocolate.
After they all finally leave me alone in my room, to my immense relief, I close my bedroom door behind me. I retrieve the hidden envelope and play the CD on my laptop, listening to the song with my earbuds as I reread Fred’s letter repeatedly. The song keeps looping over and over, imprinting the chorus deep into my mind, teaching me to hold on to hope even though I’ve progressively lost almost everything I had in the past twelve months.
In this game, the lesson’s in your eyes to see
Though things change, the future’s still inside of me
We must remember that tomorrow comes after the dark
So you will always be in my heart, with unconditional love
I’m irrationally thankful when New Year’s Day comes; there’s no solid evidence that 2002 is going to be any better than 2001 was, but still, tearing out the last page on my old calendar and throwing it into the recycling bin gives me the satisfaction of purging the last of that
annus horribilis
. As this tenuous equilibrium continues, I fall back into the rhythm of my days, watching winter turn to spring.
With the four months up, Fred comes back; I take half a day off from work and sneak into the passenger terminal so I can be there to meet him. I cling to him, drinking in his presence, relishing the fact that he’s returned from his deployment safe and sound. He’s here for more than one mission: of course, he wants to see me, but also, he always makes it a point to visit AJ’s parents whenever he’s here, as a proxy for AJ and Sophia. This time, he brings me along at last; he insists on renting a car instead of driving mine, and we stop outside a red brick apartment building just at the outskirts of the part of town that nobody ever allowed me to go to. Mr. and Mrs. Croft might be far from rich; he’s been working for more than two decades in construction, and she still cleans house and babysits for a suburban white family, yet they are the friendliest people I’ve met, more welcoming even than the Musgroves. Mrs. Croft even remembers about the enquiries Fred made on my behalf to place Mr. Hill, Sarah and Jemima, and asks me about whether I’ve been successful at finding good families for them to work for.
“That’s almost where I grew up in,” explains Fred, and I know the reason why it’s almost, is because we’re still on the verge of the divide with the ‘hood, whereas he was right in the heart of it.
“Why didn’t AJ buy them a house in the suburbs?” I ask him. “He’s been an officer for, what, five or six years now? 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001…” I count the years off on my fingers, “he should be, like, at least a full Lieutenant or something, right? Surely, he’d be making enough money to get them out of the city and retire?”
“That apartment’s already nicer than the one they had when I was growing up,” Fred replies. “AJ bought it for them several years ago, after he got his first promotion. They don’t want to move away to a new place where they don’t know anyone, and they’d be terribly bored if they retired barely into their fifties.”
One of our nannies when I was little was Chinese, and she used to teach me this saying in Cantonese:
yao qing yam sui bao
1
, which means, “water is the food of love”. Oh, how I wish it was really true; when Fred gets back to his base after that precious half a day we spend together, we end up having our first real quarrel, and of all things, of course, it’s about money.
At work one afternoon, I get a small envelope delivered by courier and I have to sign for it; when I open it up, it’s a cashier’s check for a five-figure sum issued by Fred. At barely past my twenty-fourth birthday, anything above a thousand dollars is still a huge sum of money to me; this amount is almost as much as I had in my entire bank account when I moved back from Everett.
“I’m not going to cash that check, Fred,” I tell him when he calls that night. “It’s way too generous of you and I couldn’t possibly thank you enough for the thought behind it, but my conscience won’t allow me to take that much money away from you.”
“Anne, stop thinking about the Elliot pride,” he replies, an edge of exasperation creeping into his voice. “I don’t see why you won’t let me help you, when you know you need that money.”
“The Elliot pride?” I retort. “I’ll have you know, I never cared two hoots about the Elliot pride. But I do care about you – and all I want is for you to enjoy your money after you’ve worked so hard to earn it!” I realize I’m whisper-shouting and pause for a moment. “You’ve waited so long to get to this point, Fred,” I continue in a more subdued tone. “You shouldn’t ruin it just because of me.”
“Anne, this
is
about the Elliot pride,” says Fred in a studiedly and ominously slow and calm voice, as if he’s deliberately willing himself to not yell at me. “I got a whole bunch of extra pay and allowances from my deployment, and you’re shelling out a ton of money to pay for the help and your grandma’s cab fares – expenses which your pay was never meant to support. All I’m doing is to divide our savings equally, so both of us have the same amount of money for a rainy day. That’s the natural thing a man should do for his wife. And if you weren’t an Elliot, you’d see that, instead of thinking you’re the only person in the world who can’t admit you’re short of money and casting me as the poor boy who always needs your help.”
“But hiring the help was my choice,” I point out. “You wouldn’t have done something bourgeois like that if you were in my shoes. So, I should bear the responsibility for my lifestyle decisions, instead of letting them affect you.”
“Is that really a lifestyle decision, though?” he asks. “If you didn’t have help, you wouldn’t be able to work and look after your grandma at the same time. And if your grandma didn’t have cancer, you wouldn’t be hiring the help.”
“That’s true,” I acknowledge. “But still, all this is because I wanted to work. That’s still a choice – my choice.”
“How long has it been now – a year and a half? That’s a really long time for you to go without a job. And since you were just out of college when you left Boeing, the longer you don’t work, the harder it’ll be for you to find work when you want to. I want you to be able to find a job you’ll like, something you’re not over-qualified for, when you join me on base. And aircraft maintenance is perfect, because where there’s planes, they’ll always need people to do MRO
2
. So, the help to me is not a luxury, but an essential. When you boil it all down, you don’t have a choice to not work if you don’t want to end up screwing up your career prospects for the long term.”
He's right, I realize; I’ve been so used to thinking of myself as the rich girl who’s obligated to help everyone else because I was given so much just by an accident of birth, but now I’m not even that anymore. Fred continues to send me money every month, carefully calculating the sums so both of us have the same amount of cash in our bank accounts at the end of it. And my account keeps on growing healthily into a nest egg that neither of us have the ability to use, since the one thing we really want to use it for is forbidden from us.
With Grandma, things continue to stay on a plateau, until the slippery slope starts ever so imperceptibly. Over the course of 2002 we leave the house less and less frequently, but she still does her hair, makeup, and clothes perfectly, gets out of bed every morning to spend the rest of the day in the living room reading or watching TV, and comes to the dining room to eat with Mary and me at dinnertime without fail. It isn’t until a day in early 2003, when she needs to hang onto the wall to get from the dining table to the bathroom, that I realize she’s actually been getting slower bit by bit without me noticing it, and I feel terribly guilty because I wonder if I failed to pick it up because I unconsciously shut my eyes to whatever I didn’t want to see. We travel to Hopkins, and that’s when I learn the lesson that cancer isn’t linear; for all the tumor markers had seemed to be under control, but now out of nowhere, there’s an ugly lump shaped like a crumbly teardrop that’s somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball at the bottom, spanning across two vertebrae in her spine. How those two tiny lumps could spawn a third, monstrous offspring like that, in such a short time no less, is completely beyond my comprehension. But at least now there is a clear plan of action, which is to get it out. They talk about surgery, and then radiation, and I get hope that we’ll be able to get back to where we started from after we finish the course of treatment.
Everyone flies into Baltimore, for there’s nothing like an operation to bring all the family together. With Father, Liz and Mary all crammed into the serviced apartment I’ve rented, I split my nights between two sofa beds: the one in Grandma’s hospital room, and the one in the living room of our temporary digs. Fred and I have to go back to texts again, and everyone makes daily rounds to the hospital by rote, though nobody can think of any meaningful conversation, so we mainly pass the hours in silence staring at the TV. We try watching the news until it gets too depressing, and then we hop from channel to channel, watching reruns of old sitcoms and soaps until my ears begin to ring with all the canned laughter, even though none of us is in the mood to laugh at any of the jokes. The only respite I get is when Grandma takes her naps after her meals, and I catch a break at the food court downstairs. Father brings my sisters out to eat at Inner Harbor or orders takeout to bring back to the apartment, but I never join them, choosing instead to remain with Grandma until she goes to sleep.
The day of the surgery comes, a nail-biting five-hour wait brimming with anxiety. Mary whines, Liz grumbles, and Father buries himself in the latest issue of
Tatler
as we all bounce restlessly around the apartment; I’ve already got us a generous, upscale two-bedroom unit, but it feels suffocatingly small when all our pent-up nervous energy is filling it up like a pressure cooker. I’ve brought a few of the latest books I got from my MIT friends and try to distract myself with one of them but end up looking at my watch or my phone every five minutes or so. At the end of that interminably long day, though, we get the call telling us that the surgery was successful, and we can go visit Grandma in her room. She still hasn’t come round yet from the anesthesia and there’s tubes sticking out from her, a red one and a yellow one, but she looks like herself and that awful lump is out, so this is the beginning of the time when we can start healing again.
Things get better step by step: she wakes up, she recognizes us, she starts talking to us and they start taking the tubes out. They start cranking her bed into a more upright position, then show us how to help her sit up and move about without bending her back. As she gains more strength, they show her how to stand and walk with support. She gets up and about again, but now she has to use a walker, and I need to help her when she goes to the bathroom at night. There won’t be enough bedrooms in the apartment when she gets discharged from the hospital, and the twelve weeks of FMLA leave a year that I’m entitled to aren’t quite enough to get her through rehab, recovery and radiation, which means I need to spend some time in Detroit while she’s here if I want to keep my job. Everyone else is intent on staying put too; it’s almost become a competitive sport in the Elliot family to show off who cares more about Grandma. Elliot-ness, after all, is about showing the world that we’re the most perfect family, and so with things getting better every day, everyone is in a positive mood and wants to claim a share of the credit for her recovery. Except for me – I don’t really trust Father or my sisters to take on any concrete responsibilities, but yet I don’t want to jeopardize my job by exhausting all my FMLA leave in one fell swoop because it’ll be hard to find another local job in my field if I let this one go. And so now I realize why Fred has given me his siblings – because when things get too big for me to handle, at least I now have someone to talk to where I didn’t before. I call Sophia on my cell phone from the hospital courtyard and give her a quick synopsis of the situation.
“Anne, how many adults are there in your family?” Sophia promptly asks.
“Um… three, I guess – Father, Liz and me. And then there’s Mary – but she’s only twenty, so I wouldn’t count her if I were you.”
“Twenty is plenty old enough to be helping out,” states Sophia matter-of-factly. “So, let’s start with the basics – you have a father and two grown sisters, and none of them are employed in full-time jobs. That means, they have all the time in the world to hang around in Baltimore to keep an eye on your grandma.”
“True, they technically have the time to do it, but they haven’t been following her treatment the way I have. And now she needs help with going to the bathroom, which they definitely won’t want to do because they think it’s gross.”
“You’ve made it too easy for them, because you stepped in and took care of everything so efficiently. Since all of your grandma’s needs were seen to without them having to lift a finger, why would they have done anything before? If you step back a bit, you might find that they might actually step up and surprise you. I agree you need to conserve your FMLA, because this is a marathon, not a sprint, and you won’t be able to keep your job if you end up taking twelve weeks off more than one year in a row. So, you need to take care of yourself and leave your family to assume their rightful responsibilities. You can help them pick up the ropes, by writing things down and giving them simple and specific instructions to follow.”
“But what if they get grossed out in the bathroom and let Grandma fall? Isn’t it irresponsible for me to leave them with her like that when I know they’ve never done all this basic menial stuff before, and I’m dead sure they’ll mess it up?”
“Girl, you’ve been holding down a job for a year and a half, and you managed to juggle everything precisely because you had the benefit of help. Your dad’s now in Baltimore, not New York City or Palm Beach. There’s only that much damage he can do to the family finances when there isn’t that much shopping around in the first place, and he doesn’t know anyone in that town to show off to. All the money they save by not buying anything and not going to parties can go towards hiring someone to take care of the practical stuff, and in the hospital, the nurses will know what to do. Because they’re going to be a stone’s throw away from Hopkins all the while, where there will be qualified people to advise them and care for your grandma’s medical needs, there isn’t a better time for you to leave her in their hands and do what you need to do for you.”
“Besides,” Sophia continues, “letting them step up doesn’t mean you’ll be shedding all your responsibility. Before you go back to Detroit, you can talk to the doctors about any concerns you’ve got and follow up again before you take her home after the treatment is done. And also, you’ve got a phone with you - you can always call your sisters anytime you want to keep them on track.”
When I gather everyone in the family together to put together a game plan for Grandma’s transition from inpatient to outpatient care at Hopkins, the Elliot competitiveness actually works in my favor, as many of my problems end up organically solving themselves even though the motives of the individuals in question might not be quite as altruistic as they profess to be.
“As the head of this family, I suppose it behooves me to set a good example and sacrifice my room,” says Father pompously. “I shall book my air ticket to Miami immediately. Of course, Rowena is very dear to me, and I will suffer and worry so terribly, but this space is too small for all of us; and letting her have the master bedroom is the least I can do to give her due respect.”
“Just wait and see, Anne,” says Mary. “I’ll show everybody you aren’t the only one who’s of any use around here, and I’ll make sure they thank me, too! And now with Father going home, there’ll be enough room for Charles if he wants to come up on the weekends.”
“But I’m the eldest,” argues Liz. “How can my younger sisters care more than me about Grandma, when I’m the one who’s been with her the longest?”
“That’s not fair! I can’t help being the youngest, but I’ve got the most heart of all, because I stayed home instead of going away to college!” retorts Mary.
“Well, you win this one,” I concede. “I need to go back to work if I want to keep my job, so if both of you can stay, I’d really be very thankful. I’ll tell you what you need to do, and you can work out how to always have at least one person here with Grandma, and when you want to switch places if you wish. And if you need anything, I’ll be just a phone call away.”
Although they both make fun of me for not really caring about Grandma, I know nothing is farther from the truth; if I didn’t have a job to keep, there’s nothing I’d rather do than to be here personally seeing to Grandma’s recovery. Every night from Detroit, I call them and give them the third degree; they both decided to stay put after all, and they’ve hired an hourly nurse to handle all the hands-on duties. At least they can drive, so they use the rental car I arranged to take Grandma to and from her radiation appointments. Other than that, they seem to see this visit as a kind of extended vacation and spend most of their downtime watching
CSI
and
Friends
, though it seems Grandma joins them in the binge-watching whenever she feels up to it, and it’s keeping her spirits up.
After Grandma completes her radiation therapy, I go back to Hopkins to talk to her doctors and bring her home; she’ll always need to use a walker to get around, but otherwise she’s in a good mood and back in her usual routine. It’s the beginning of summer by the time we return to Grosse Pointe, settling into a new normal where I increase Sarah and Jemima’s hourly pay because they now have to help with Grandma’s mobility needs in addition to the other stuff they’re doing. Every night, after a rushed ten-minute catch-up with Fred whenever he’s not away on duty, I open my door wide again so I can hear Grandma whenever she wakes up; I can’t afford to be a heavy sleeper now because I need to be on standby to help her to her bathroom.
This summer is also the one when the report comes out for the China Airlines 611 crash a year ago; they find out that the plane broke up because there was a crack after it accidentally hit its tail on the runway twenty years ago, which never got properly repaired. And so, I realize, I actually have achieved one of my goals from that long-ago list after all, because even though I’m working in maintenance and not design, I’m still playing a big role in preventing plane crashes if I do my job carefully and diligently.
1. 有情饮水饱 is a Cantonese saying which translates literally to, “If you have love, you will feel full even if you only drink water”.
2. MRO stands for Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul. It’s like how you bring your car to the dealer for scheduled maintenance, except they do it much more frequently for airplanes.
Posted on 2022-04-01
With sixteen months since Fred got back from his previous deployment, it’s his turn to get called up again; but now that it’s the second time, we both hold up better because we know what to expect. After almost two years, the stream of books, greeting cards and DVDs from our MIT friends is still going strong, and Cheyenne is still stopping by the house regularly to visit and talk to Grandma. And suddenly, an unexpected distraction arises when out of the blue, Elise calls.
“ARRRGGGHHH!!!” Elise is usually so cool and collected, she never loses it; but this time, she unleashes her frustration on me full force the second I answer my cell phone. “I quit - this is ENOUGH! The new program manager working with my team is so annoying, I can’t believe he managed to get away with it for so many years. He insulted me outright, and that’s not Googley at all!”
“Elise, cool it,” I say. “You know you’re not going to quit when you’ve just joined Google for less than three months, and this is the big break you wanted all along. Besides, you got in at L4
3
, which is amazing when you’re competing with all those other people who have Masters’ degrees, and this is only your third year out of college. You can’t give all of that up because of just one jerk. And maybe you’ll feel better after you talk about it. Who is this guy, and what exactly did he say?”
“I wish,” says Elise. “You’re right, I did get in at L4, but what does it matter when this little Chinese puppet emperor is going around telling everybody I didn’t deserve my grade? OK, I’ll back up a bit here – his name is William Deng, and of all things, he calls himself ‘William’ because he thinks he’s royalty. And right on the first day of the project, he told my boss Chase that I shouldn’t be an L4 after he found an ‘elementary’ bug in my code, just because he happened to stumble upon my first draft. In fact, I heard him asking Chase if he could be re-assigned with another SDE
4
, since he doesn’t want anyone with buggy code working on his features.”
“Aww… But Chase defended you, right? I mean, you’re still on the project, so it can’t possibly be that bad? And why do you say he thinks he’s royalty, when just about anybody could be named William?”
“Well, yeah, I guess there’s a lot of people named William out there, but he gave himself that name on purpose. The first time I tried to find his email, there wasn’t anyone named William Deng in the staff directory, so I asked Chase about it, and he explained that I need to look for William by his Chinese name because ‘William’ isn’t in his official ID. Chase told me, just like I know how to find him as Lin Chao officially, William should be there as Deng Fei
5
. And of course, his real name has to be snooty just like him – ‘Fei’ means ‘to fly’ in Chinese, and nobody could be more of a high flyer, naturally. Andover, then Harvard, then Silicon Valley, where he was a legendary SDE and one of the first Googlers in Mountain View, before they unleashed him on us unsuspecting souls here in Cambridge. Well, at least it’ll be easy to remember, like how Chase taught me that ‘Chao’ means ‘to surpass’, so he gave himself the name ‘Chase’ to match the meaning of his Chinese name and because it sounds American. And Chase told me, William chose his English name because he’s always been intrigued by the British monarchy, and he wanted to name himself after Prince William. Ugh.”
When I search for “William Deng Fei” on LinkedIn, I find a Chinese guy with chiseled features and a baby-smooth face. His thick black hair is parted perfectly on one side and curls just a little bit, and he has a tiny hint of a smile. From his education and work history, I deduce that he’s probably around thirty, but his looks are ageless - he could plausibly be anywhere between twenty-five and thirty-five, and still be considered incredibly handsome. One thing’s for sure – Elise paints him out to be an absolute ogre, but his LinkedIn picture makes him look like a reasonably nice person. Before this, Elise has always been too busy with work to call, so we were keeping in touch with a text and email here and there; but now, she calls me every week with a litany of complaints against William Deng.
Specimen 1: “You know, writing code isn’t even in his job description, but he’s such a busybody he spends all day poking around in Piper. I honestly have no idea how on earth he has the time to get his real job done. All the engineers hate him because he points out all the bugs in everybody’s code, and then he goes into the system and fixes them. Why can’t he just stay in his own lane and focus on feature requirements? Nobody cares that he used to be this super SDE when now, he’s in program management and he needs to let the engineers do their work.”
Specimen 2: “So, I don’t have a clue how Chase can possibly be so buddy-buddy with a jerk like William when he’s just about the nicest, most down-to-earth guy in the world. Apparently, William is this blue blood from Beijing and his filthy rich, scholar-tycoon family originates from the northern part of China, while Chase’s dad never went to college and operates a manufacturing plant in Shenzhen. That’s how Chase got his name – his parents wanted him to do better than they did by going to college, so they named him ‘Chao’ so he would surpass their achievements. But other than them both being Chinese, they don’t have anything in common at all. Chase said they became friends when they were both SDEs in Mountain View and used to go for hot pot in Cupertino together on the weekends. Well, that’s men for you – all they care about is their stomachs. Good conversation, or even basic decency, apparently isn’t a prerequisite for bromance.”
Specimen 3: “So now, the puppet emperor thinks he’s the boss of all of us. He took the whole team out for hot pot after work, saying it’s a reward for meeting our milestones. The cheek of it when we’ve never officially reported into him! That stuff was so spicy we were all tearing up after two mouthfuls, and he ordered a huge plate of animal guts and dumped it into the soup. How gross is that! And when, in the name of small talk, I told him I have four sisters, he said, ‘That’s such a pity’. Great, now I’m stuck working with someone who’s not only arrogant, but also a misogynist. I couldn’t stand talking to him after that, so I told them all I was going to head home early, and then I spent the rest of my evening with a bowl of mac and cheese and
The OC
. You can’t fault me for indulging in some self-care, right? At least I got myself some proper food, instead of sitting there watching him stuff his face with pig intestines.”
“Elise, aren’t you letting this guy get a little too much under your skin?” I point out. “We’ve dissected every single one of your first dates since we were fifteen, and this man, who isn’t even dating you, is ruffling you up in a way nobody has ever done before.”
“
Dating
me? Perish the thought,” she says. “I won’t date William Deng even if he was the last man in the world.”
The week before Fred is due to come back from deployment, Elise visits me, staying with me for the duration of her visit and lending a hand with the chores and cooking.
“We’re going to watch
Return of the King
, before you get the return of
your
king,” she whispers gleefully as we set up a blow-up mattress in the living room to camp out for a marathon session of the first two movies in the trilogy on Saturday, before we watch the third and last movie at the theatre on Sunday. “When Fred asked me to get the
Lord of the Rings
DVDs for you, he said that while he’s away, the only competition for you he’ll allow is Aragon.”
We watch the two movies with the rest of my family, and then after Grandma and Mary have gone to bed, Elise launches into the latest instalment of her saga with William Deng, which leaves me pop-eyed in astonishment.
“Remember how I said he’s the last man in the world I’d ever date? Well, heaven help me, because I did absolutely nothing to give him any ideas, and yet he still somehow got into in his head that I’d be willing to go out with him. After I shipped the feature he wanted from my team, he sat himself down next to me in the cafeteria and asked if he could get dinner with me sometime, now that he doesn’t have any conflicts of interest from being on the same project anymore.”
“Wait a minute,” I say. “I thought you said he didn’t want to have anything to do with you even in a working capacity? Somehow, I found it hard to believe he’s as nasty as you think; I checked out his LinkedIn picture and he seems like a perfectly innocuous human being. In fact, he’s probably one of the best-looking men alive, not that it seems to have made any difference with you.”
“It gets worse,” replies Elise. “Wait till you hear about how he asked me out. Of course, I thought he wanted nothing to do with me all this time – even when asking me for a date, he still made it a point to tell me exactly what he thought of my shortcomings as a software engineer. He said if we were to date each other, that would mean he couldn’t be put on more projects with me, and so he wouldn’t have to deal with my buggy code anymore!”
“Oh no,” I facepalm. “But honestly, is it that surprising that he has no sense of tact? First of all, you have to make allowances for him being a geek. Handsomeness and geekiness are not necessarily mutually exclusive, as we can see with Exhibit A over here.”
“If I thought he was merely gauche and tactless, I could’ve handled that. But what I hated most about him was his misogyny. And I lit right into him, telling him I’d never go out with a woman-hater who thought it was a pity that I come from a family of five daughters. That really knocked the wind out of him, when I gave him a dressing down right in the middle of the Google cafeteria.”
“Ouch. Awkward. Will they let you ask to not be put on any more projects with him? I suppose it’ll be even harder for you and him to be in the same office after this, and it’s not like you can avoid each other for very long in a space the size of Google Cambridge.”
“No, you’re right there, it’s not going to be easy to not talk to each other in an office of barely a hundred people. But I came because I wanted you to see this email he wrote me the day after that incident, so you can tell me what you think. Anne, you’re the very epitome of discretion, so I know you’ll keep it to yourself, but this is really top secret – after you read this email, please erase it completely from your brain and after tonight, we will both take it that none of this ever happened.”
Elise logs into her laptop and opens up the email in its own window before settling herself so that we’re sitting side by side, lotus style, on the blow-up mattress to read it:
Elise,
Yesterday was utterly awkward and embarrassing. I know that now, and I apologize. Please be assured that I have no intention of causing you further embarrassment or humiliating myself any more than I have already done, by pursuing that matter which was so repugnant to you.
You accused me of two things yesterday, and I hope you will hear me out on both of them, even though you might not wish to do so. It might be selfish of me, but I believe you are a fair-minded person and I want you to know the truth.
The first thing you said was that I have overstepped my boundaries as a program manager and interfered with the work of the engineering team. In all honesty, it was never my intent to do so. I grew up in a system that was rigidly perfectionist; as a child, I was made to sit for hours doing complicated speed arithmetic using only the fingers of one hand, and if I made any mistakes, I would get the cane when I got home. My parents always planned to send me to the US for my higher education, but my extended family and neighbors often gossiped that this was because they didn’t think I would do well in the “gao kao” (college entrance examinations) and so they wanted me to escape from it. To prove them wrong, I was not allowed to get anything less than perfect scores, all the way until I started high school at Andover. It is difficult to get rid of habits long entrenched since childhood, and so I still cannot control myself. By sheer instinct, I feel compelled to fix every bug I find in our code base. But you are right, I should try harder to keep my hands to myself and leave the coding to the SDEs.
The second, and much worse, thing you said was that I am a casual misogynist and don’t have any respect for women, especially women engineers. To make my position clear, I have no choice except to divulge a very personal matter, which I hope you will treat with the utmost confidentiality. As an alumnus of Andover and Harvard, my ties with the Boston area run strong, and one of the main reasons why I asked to come to the Cambridge office from Mountain View is because I consider this place as home. As an aficionado of classical music, I like to attend the performances of the Harvard-Radcliffe orchestra, and at the last concert I went to, just weeks before this unfortunate project started, they featured a brief solo from an amazing violinist who is just a freshman. I was so entranced by her skill that I Googled her when I got home and found the blog written by her adoptive mom. Specifically, I discovered that she is not an American-born Asian, as I had been led to believe because her name is Gianna Doherty; but rather, she was adopted as a baby from China, and her birth name, which is still her legal middle name, is Deng Jia
6
.
I remember the year when I was twelve years old, which coincides with the year when she was born. Out of nowhere, my parents told me that they would be sending me to Heilongjiang to live with my grandparents for the school year. They said it was because they wanted to give me an appreciation for what it was like to live in the provinces, but with this new information, I suspected that they might have had something else to hide. When I raised the matter with them, they broke down and admitted that they had a second child, which might not seem like a big deal to you but would make them subject to heavy penalties from the government. They admitted that giving up their daughter for adoption was one of the most painful things they had done, but remained adamant that they had no choice, and now we should not look back. I am certain that Gianna is the sister I never knew, for she is the spitting image of me and my parents, and they confirmed that Deng Jia is the name they had given to the baby girl.
You can imagine how much anguish and remorse I feel on behalf of my family, and how torn I am about whether to connect with my biological sister. One thing my parents got right, I suppose, is our penchant for excellence: they now have two offspring who made it to Harvard, and they even gave us names to reflect our superlativeness. My given name, Fei, means “to fly”, and it reflects my parents’ wish that I should always be a high flyer. My sister’s name, Jia, on the other hand, means “superior”, and I can only say that in the virtuosity of her violin playing, she has lived up to that name every inch of the way. I suppose we, or at least I, must have unconsciously absorbed that sense of superiority, for I had no idea how offensive my comments were to you. When I said it was a pity your family has five daughters, it was in a moment of pain and thoughtlessness, for in my country, there are families who take all kinds of risks to have a son, and some of them end up heartbreakingly frustrated. If they are not blessed with a son on the first try, they will have to find all kinds of ways to skirt the policy: some give up their daughters to orphanages, others may declare their daughters as disabled so that they can have permission to try for a second child, and then there are those who are driven to infanticide. Because of all that has happened with my family, the pain of associating daughters with sacrifice is too close to my heart, and I cannot think of the subject without a great deal of turmoil.
I swear that everything I say here is true. Without knowing all of this, it is no wonder you thought the worst of me, but I hope that what I have shared will give you pause. I will only wish you all the best and hope you can put any offence I caused behind you.
Deng Fei
We’re both crying by the time we scroll to the bottom of that email, and I hug Elise tightly as she buries her face in my shoulder.
“I was so wrong about him,” she sobs. “And I feel terribly guilty about making a spectacle of him like that, even though I still don’t think I would have agreed to date him anyway. What am I going to do?”
“Give it some time,” I advise her. “It’s probably a good thing you came out here and put some distance between you and the situation. He seems to be just as embarrassed as you are about it, so he’ll probably lie low for a while. If you have to work with him again, take it as a clean slate; from the email he wrote, it looks like he knows how to behave like an adult and meet you on neutral ground.”
Now I finally know how Joni Mitchell could’ve written that song, for since the year I turned twenty-three, I’ve lived on that other side of the clouds. Yet even through the darkest days of my life, hope and love are still the guiding light pulling me through; for it is only now, when I have been stretched to my very limit, that I know exactly what I treasure most of all.
END OF PART II
3.Most engineers joining Google straight out of school start at L3, and it takes anywhere from 1 to 5 years of experience for them to get to L4. Elise has gotten that first promotion relatively quickly, considering that she does not have a Master’s degree.
4. SDE stands for Software Development Engineer, a computer programmer.
5. In Chinese characters, William’s name is 邓飞 and Chase’s name is 林超. Hopefully, the meanings of the names are in character for a modern-day Darcy and Bingley!
6. In Chinese characters, her name is 邓佳.
Posted on 2022-04-10
CONTENT WARNING:
This is the saddest chapter of this story, because of all the things that come with a terminal cancer diagnosis.
Part III – Chapter 7 (Anne)
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all
–
Both Sides Now
, Joni Mitchell
January 2004, Grosse Pointe, Michigan
“It will happen, and then we can be together.” That’s what Fred always says whenever he needs assurance that we do have a path to each other. Even though I know he speaks of “it” with an air of fatalism rather than malice, honestly, “it” is the last thing I want to hear about. Still, I know that’s the only thing keeping him going all this while – because without the certainty of “it”, our current state of limbo might just as well last forever, and there would be no meaning in us staying engaged if we were to believe we can never be together in all of eternity. But although my rational mind is fully aware of the inevitability of “it”, in my heart of hearts, I’ll never be ready, not even when hitting the three-year mark has already surpassed any of the expectations the doctors originally had for Grandma. I know that I’m selfish, and that I’m greedy; but three years isn’t enough. Heck, five years won’t be enough either. There isn’t any number of years that could ever be enough, for I will always take the years I’m given, and then want yet some more.
These days, Grandma spends most of her time in her room, and instead of coming out to the dining table to eat with us, we have to bring her meals on a tray to her room. Nonetheless, she still changes out of her PJ’s into proper clothing every day, combs her hair, and sits in a chair in her room to watch TV and have her meals. That’s why when she complains one morning about feeling lethargic, I don’t think too much of it – I figure there should be a simple explanation, something like maybe the flu. We head to the hospital and spend almost half a day sitting in a crowded waiting room before a doctor sees her, and they arrange for a room so she can stay overnight for tests and scans. It all feels very routine until the results come back the next day, and that is when my whole world falls apart once more again.
It's bad news, probably the worst I could possibly get: the cancer has spread to occupy 80% of her lungs, which means that all the cells (or not even all, just twenty-five percent of them) only need to divide just once, and that will be the end of the road.
“Do you think that will be weeks, or months?” I ask, in a shaky, tentative voice.
“It varies with every individual, but the most likely outcome is weeks,” comes the answer.
Weeks
. A period of time that could pass by in a single flash, for “weeks” could mean a week, or two, or three. I’m so not ready for this – perhaps it should’ve been obvious to me that I should’ve been prepared, yet I’ve never been able to conceive of a life without Grandma in it, not when she’s been there with me for as long as I can remember.
When the diagnosis first came, more than three years ago to this day, the hardest thing for me was to tell people that Grandma has cancer. It felt like if I didn’t say it, then at least there might be a chance that the doctors might be wrong, but if the words came out of my mouth, that would mean I believed in it, and it’d make it real. Yet now, it’s the opposite – I can’t keep this news to myself for any length of time at all, because I just can’t, I don’t want to, face this on my own. I waste no time calling Father in Florida and Mary at her dorm, telling all of them to come meet me at home.
They’ve got her on oxygen with a cannula and are giving her morphine, so for the moment, she’s stable and as comfortable as she can get. While I wait for Father to fly in, I sit with her. Every moment is precious now, and watching TV is just wasting time, so instead I decide to find something we can talk about which won’t remind us of our morbid situation, something I’ve always wanted to know, but never dared to ask.
“Grandma, how did Father and Mom get together?”
She answers me slowly, pausing often, but persevering to tell me the whole story. “It was 1965,” she says. “My dear Eli – for that’s what I called Elizabeth when she was young – was in sophomore year at Barnard, and all she wanted was to spend a year studying in Paris. She had just gotten into a study-abroad program for junior year, and then she met Walter at a college mixer in NYC. He wanted to go to Paris too, and so they agreed to spend the next year in Paris together. She told me she liked him because he was very handsome and looked French, and he spoke perfect French even though his family was from Detroit, like us.
“She went there and stayed in school all year, but Walter had dropped out of Marymount Manhattan because he fancied himself to be an artist. His parents rented a swanky little studio apartment for him in a quaint old building right in the middle of downtown, and later on she told me she hardly spent any time with her host family because she ended up living there with him. She always said that was the most romantic year of her life, when they made trips into the countryside, visited the old chateaus, skied in the Alps, and frequented the Louvre, and they could both drink wine because the legal drinking age over there is eighteen. After the year was over, she managed to convince him to come back to the States because they both wanted to be in San Francisco for the Summer of Love.
“After the summer, they came back – thank God – and she told me there was nothing left for them in Haight-Ashbury anymore because it was getting too crowded, and all the ‘real’ hippies were going away. I don’t know how she talked him into going back to school, but he ended up finishing his degree in film and media studies, while she graduated magna cum laude in her class in economics. She finished school a year earlier than he did, because of that year he skipped, but she stayed in NYC with him anyway and after he graduated in 1969, they went up to Woodstock.
“They came back to Detroit after Altamont – it took the joy out of being hippies for them, she said. Eli was the one who made Walter cut his hair, change his ragged bell-bottoms for suits, and join his father’s company. They were twenty-four, he had a good income with the family firm, and his parents gave them a decent sum of money to buy a house. Why would there be any reason for them not to get married? And you know, the rest is history. They had a good life, those years – nice house, good money, and lots of social engagements. Your grandpa was only a lawyer, a partner in a small firm, so Walter’s family, with three generations in Big Auto, was a big step up for my Eli.”
Honestly, do you want to know what I think? Grandma told me I was throwing my life away at nineteen when I committed to an exclusive relationship with Fred and refused to date any more boys, but I think it’s
my mom
who threw her life away. She was nineteen too, when she met Father; and while Fred spent every single cent of the money that
he earned himself
to invest in his future, paying for flight lessons and strategically clocking up flying hours in specific aircraft to improve his resume with his summer income, Father was squandering away his family’s money, that his father and grandfather before him had worked hard to earn, just to travel around and enjoy life without giving anything back to the family. Father and Fred might both have been nineteen, handsome, witty and charming, without a cent saved up in their bank accounts, when Mom and I respectively met them; but that’s pretty much where anything they might ever have in common ends. For seventeen years, it turns out, Mom took care of Father, and how did she end up after all that effort? She never got to see her fortieth birthday, having sacrificed her life for the hope of giving him a son, and she never had a chance to get to know her daughters and be a part of our lives as we grew up.
“Do you think Mom was happy?” I ask Grandma.
“She had almost everything,” Grandma replies. “Wealth, status, beauty, popularity, and virtue, those were all hers for the taking. There was only one more thing I would have wished for her, which is that she could have a husband who valued her more.”
When Father, Liz, Mary and Charles all show up in Grandma’s hospital room together within 24 hours and hang around for hours on end, nobody needs to say anything explicitly for her to know that the news isn’t good. Over the past two days, I’ve been turning over all the options in my mind: bringing her home on hospice, staying in the hospital, or getting her transferred to a residential hospice facility. Father and Liz are staying with me in Grandma’s house, occupying the two other bedrooms, so if we want to bring Grandma home, we’ll need to set up a hospital bed and oxygen apparatus in the living room. Mary, who’d gone back to school at last, starting four-year college after a year off following her associate degree, insists on coming home to stay too, even though I encouraged her to stay in her dorm so she could still get to and from class without depending on us having the time to drive her to campus at Dearborn. But she insists on staying put and camping out in my room; she spends all her days crying noisily and saying she’s too sad to be able to concentrate at school. Much as I think Grandma might want to spend her last weeks at her old home, the reality is that it’ll be far from comfortable for her there, as we would need to manage her morphine and oxygen dosage mainly on our own, save for short visits from a hospice nurse, and she’ll have to put up with all the drama and bickering from the family as well. But when I bring up the possibility of going to a hospice facility, Father nixes it because of the stigma; as usual, he’d rather whitewash and set aside anything he doesn’t like, rather than facing the messiness that real life unavoidably brings from time to time.
“Hospices smell of death,” he remarks, wrinkling his nose. “And she’ll live longer if she believes that her disease is being actively treated, so she can have hope of getting better.”
Well, I suppose, that means he’s not going to tell Grandma the truth about her condition, not that it surprises me one bit. I’ve learned, though, that withholding the truth is cruel rather than kind, and so, I end up being the one to break it to her, as gently as possible.
“Grandma,” I say, “who are the people whom you would most like to see? If I make out a list, I can ask Father to invite them here to come see you.”
“If you ask them to come… I suppose that means, going home is not in the plan, then?” asks Grandma.
“I’ve been thinking long and hard about the arrangements for going home, and with Father and Liz staying there, and Mary doubled up with me in my room, you’ll be more comfortable staying here, where you have a private room of your own, and we can crank the bed up for you to help you breathe easier.” I stop there, not wanting to disrespect Father by spelling out how it would be utter chaos for us to move her with all the equipment she needs into a space that’s bursting at the seams with Elliot bickering, but I don’t think I need to say all that for her to get the idea anyway.
“I see… And how long is this going to be for?”
“I don’t know,” I say, because I don’t want to say ‘weeks’, and the truth, honestly, is that nobody really knows. And then, I’m lost for anything else to say that wouldn’t sound callous or trite.
Grandma closes her eyes and stays perfectly still, deep in thought, for a long time; but when she opens them again and turns her head to face me, her expression and demeanour are calm and peaceful.
“Eighty-eight years is a long time to live,” she says. “And I’ve had a comfortable and happy life, too. Don’t worry about me, Anne – I’ll be all right.”
The next week or so passes by in a blur; people come and go in Grandma’s room, many of them distant relatives and family acquaintances whom I hardly know. Madam Dalrymple and Miss Carteret fly in from New York, of course, all decked out in Gucci and Alexander McQueen, while I’m in two-day-old sweats, an oversize T-shirt, and the Chuck Taylors I wore back in college, which are now ratty, stinky and scuffed but still the most comfortable footwear I own. Every day, I go back to the house for a shower break and a change of clothing, then return to the hospital for another twenty-three-hour marathon stint of hanging around, waiting for nothing in particular.
If the Elliot family had one superpower, it’s the ability to turn any location into an aristocrat’s drawing room. Even in these days, the days that are supposed to be full of poignant moments of connection and closure, all the conversations from the unending parade of guests are essentially superficial parlour-talk. After a quick exchange of how-are-you’s, they’ll launch into all the latest who’s-with-whom or who’s-gotten-what or who’s-gone-where. Nobody’s really interested in talking about anything remotely meaningful, yet strangely enough, Grandma seems perfectly content with receiving and entertaining them all. And I suppose, as long as she’s happy and gets to see everyone whom she wants to see one more time, the visits are serving their purpose after all, so I paste a smile on my face and participate in the small talk as best as I can.
Each new day stretches ahead of me, long and full of dread; I hate crossing off each day on the calendar, yet I feel trapped in this world of limbo where Grandma and I are constantly surrounded by people, but I can’t say what I truly think or feel to any of them. About a week in, though, I get some relief through an unexpected text – it’s Sophia, and she says she’s waiting downstairs in the hospital lobby and asks me to go meet her whenever it’s convenient for me to step out.
Grandma always takes a nap after lunch, and that’s usually when I head down to the food court to grab a quick bite for myself, so I swing by the lobby first to pick up Sophia. She looks just like the picture she sent, with her short, thick hair in tightly-wound corkscrew curls framing her head like a cloud, accentuated with bold hoop earrings. Although it’s the first time we’re meeting in person, I feel like I’ve known her a long time already from all the calls and correspondence we’ve had in the past two-and-a-half years, and I can hardly believe she really came here, all the way from San Diego where AJ is currently on shore duty. I fall into her outstretched arms for an enormous, reassuring hug.
“I’ll be here for as long as you need somebody,” she says to me. “I’m living with my in-laws, and AJ and Fred sent enough money for me to stay here for a few months and get you settled through this.”
This, I realize, is how Fred has kept that long-ago promise, that he’d be there with me when “it” happens. I knew, all along, that his time is not always his own and that he might not be able to get leave to come to me, but he’d somehow arranged with Sophia that she should be here so that I’d have a much-needed friend – or a sister, during the darkest days of this journey.
Sophia stays next to me in Grandma’s room as we watch her sleep; even though we can’t talk much for fear of disturbing her rest, I still feel much better knowing I won’t be facing this alone. With most of the constant stream of visitors petering out now that we are starting week two of this hospital stay, I’ve been spending long days and even longer nights living in the hospital room, mostly marking time between the cycle of watching TV, having meals, and buzzing the nurse so each of us can take one side when helping Grandma use the bathroom. Despite the prognosis being “weeks”, the sameness of each day this past week and a half gives me hope amidst my sense of dread. Every night, I’ve been carefully saying “goodnight” to Grandma instead of “goodbye”, not wanting to jinx myself by indicating I feel anything less than 100% certain that I’ll see her again the next day. It’s been like going back to the days of chemo again, only worse because there is now no hope left; I’ve let each hour and each day drag along, stretching time out emptily and meaninglessly in order to buy more time. Aside from the occasional guest, the only other respites to my solitude have been the Elliot family dinners, which Father, Liz, and Mary reprise every night bringing in restaurant take-out at the time when they serve Grandma her dinner in the hospital. They’re not cruel per se, and they do want to make the most of this time together too, it’s just that they’re even more lost than I am and the only way they know how to re-create normalcy is by out-Ellioting our usual selves, noshing on fancy steak, halibut, foie gras and caviar while gathered in front of Sex And the City with Father and Liz repeating all the salacious gossip from Palm Beach that their friends sent them on AOL Instant Messenger during the day.
“Jemima,” says Grandma when she next wakes up and sees Sophia in the room. “Thank you for coming to see me – and you’ve dressed up so nicely, too.”
“Grandma, this is Sophia, not Jemima,” I quickly reply, desperate for Grandma not to insult Sophia by mistaking her for our former domestic helper. “She’s my -” I’m about to say that she’s my friend, when Sophia astutely steps in.
“I’m her friend,” says Sophia quickly, cutting me off mid-sentence. “I’m here to help Anne out.” As she says this, I realize she’s making it ambiguous whether she’s Jemima’s friend or mine, and she doesn’t mind letting Grandma think she’s the help to avoid upsetting her with us getting dangerously near the truth. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Stevenson.”
Sophia and Grandma hit it off quite well, since Sophia knows how to draw her out by getting her to share little titbits about the Stevenson and Elliot family histories whenever she has the energy. Her natural cheerfulness pervades the room, and for the first time since all of this started, I find myself able to join in conversations with a real smile instead of a pasted-on one. She tag-teams with me on bathroom duty too, giving me the chance to take more breaks in the courtyard during Grandma’s nap times. Father, Liz and Mary get to meet Sophia too as they pop in on desultory visits during the day, even though she discreetly absents herself from the Elliot dinnertime. Like Grandma, they don’t question that she could be anything other than the help because of the colour of her skin, and she continues to conceal her identity by gracefully letting them think that.
“I really should set them straight,” I tell her one day as we slip out together to the food court during lunchtime. “It isn’t fair to you, for them to look down on you that way, and I want you to be respected as a friend of the family.”
“Anne, it’s really OK,” she says. “You’ve spent the last few years keeping your engagement with Fred a secret from your family, all because you didn’t want to start a quarrel that would drive everyone apart, what with your grandma being sick and all. And you’ve hung on for so long already, so I won’t ask you to ruin everything now, at this critical time when it’s even more important for all of you to stick together. My pride can survive a few knocks, don’t worry.”
With two of us in the room every day, I bring my old chess set from home, to help us fill up the emptiness during the times when Grandma takes her long naps in the afternoons. I also grab some old favorite books from home to read to everybody, alternating between
Pride and Prejudice
and selected pieces from the stash of poetry books that Benwick has been sending me, carefully curating my readings to fill Grandma’s hours with as much joy and peace as possible.
The weeks pass as I burn through my FMLA leave: two, then three, then four. By this time, we’re more than a month into the hospital stay, and I heave a sigh of relief that
weeks
have turned into
months
after all. I know we’re living on the most borrowed of borrowed time, and Sophia and I start taking turns to spend nights on the sofa bed in the hospital room, making sure that Grandma is never left alone.
Midway through the fourth week, Charles announces that he’s coming by to visit Grandma with his family and asks for everyone in the Elliot family to be there too. Most of our visitors have come only once, but not the Musgroves; every weekend, without fail, the entire family will stop by for the hour when Grandma is most alert and Hetty and Lulu will ham it up and fill us in on their latest fifth-grade escapades, often leaving Grandma and me in laughter. But this time is different, because Charles specifically tells everyone to dress up and come hungry because he’s bringing in a teatime spread from Canella in Southfield.
Of course, this prompts Liz and Mary to make an excursion to Troy to shop for outfits, though I simply shop my closet and repurpose one of the dresses I got from Filene’s Basement during college. The formerly form-fitting sheath skims loosely around me now; even though I haven’t been running as much as I used to in high school and college, my regime of work and caregiving responsibilities hasn’t left me the space to put on any weight at all, in fact the opposite. I try to infuse some colour into my cheeks with makeup, then sweep my scraggly hair into an updo to hide the fact that I haven’t been to the hairdresser in months (in fact, it’s the first time I washed my hair in the last five days). Squeezing my feet into a pair of strappy stiletto heels, I totter out of the house and drive back to the hospital, making my way through the hallways with baby steps so the clop of my heels won’t wake up everyone in the wards.
“Lookin’ good, Anne,” says Charles, looking absolutely out of place in this space in his full black-tie outfit with tuxedo, cummerbund and bow tie. “Did you remember to bring your camera, like I asked?”
“Yep, right here,” I say, whipping my little camera out of my purse.
“OK. Now, start recording when I say ‘action’, OK?” He grabs a single red rose and a little turquoise box that he had laid down on the side table and holds them behind his back. “Now, stand over there – no, move a little bit more to your left, that’s perfect – ready? Ac-tion!”
I press the button to start recording video, as Charles drops to one knee at Mary’s feet, capturing him in perfect profile as he holds out the rose and the box to her.
“Miss Mary Elliot, we’ve been swing buddies since I was eighteen and you were just fourteen. You captured my imagination and my heart with your lightness of foot, your beautiful smile, and your melodic voice. I’ve always known we were meant to be, and today, I’m asking you if you will be the only swing partner and my one companion for the rest of our lives. Mary Elizabeth Elliot, will you marry me and make me the happiest man in the world?” He flips open the top of the box – it’s from Tiffany’s, and in the middle of the plump velvet cushion is a ring set all around with little diamonds and a big one in the middle, sparkling conspicuously in the soft winter afternoon light coming in from the window.
Mary delicately plucks the rose from Charles’ hand and squeals; I wonder how far down the hall her voice will carry. Just as delicately, she picks up the ring and slips it onto her fourth finger, waving her hand daintily toward the camera I’m holding.
“Oh, my dear Charles! You were the first boy I ever danced with, and ever since then, I knew you were the only man for me. You’ve made me the happiest woman in the world today, and of course, I’ll marry you. The only question is, how soon?” She swoops down daintily to gently pull Charles to his feet, and they share a passionate kiss, at which sight Hetty and Lulu cheer in delight.
“Cut!” calls out Charles as they pull apart – in any case, I’m not sure how long I can keep on filming till my Memory Stick runs out. They all turn to Grandma, and I note her enthusiastic smile of approval. “Mrs. Stevenson, do we have your blessing?”
“Of course,” says Grandma. “Charles, you’ve always been such a dear, sweet boy, ever since you were just a little baby. You were such a gentle child, and you’d never fight or hurt anyone. And I can’t thank you enough for how you took care of Mary these last few years, especially when it’s you who managed to get her back to school to finish her degree. I couldn’t ask for more in a grandson-in-law; you’ve made all my dreams come true.”
Performative
, I think, though I know it’s cynical and curmudgeonly of me to throw cold water on their big day, even if it’s only within my private thoughts. But let’s be honest with ourselves, this is the ultimate in revisionist history. First up, Charles and Mary weren’t really a couple when she was fourteen, the way Charles implied during his proposal. If you want the straight facts, they started swing dancing together because I wanted out of Charles’ attempts to woo me during winter break in freshman year, and then there was his doomed attempt at asking me to be his girlfriend the following summer. Even though Charles has always been the target of Mary’s puppy love, there was a time when I in turn was the target of his puppy love, albeit a reluctant one because I didn’t want to spoil our friendship. And next, there’s Grandma’s little speech about how Charles is her favourite grandson-in-law; of course, that’s true, but I know full well that all along, she would’ve much preferred him to hit it off with me instead of Mary. In the big scheme of things, none of it matters at all, because I don’t begrudge Charles and Mary their happiness, especially since I’ve already found mine; but I do feel sad that none of us Elliot sisters can have an honest love affair. All of us have our own personal skeletons in the closet: Liz serially turning away men in the hope of finding someone better (read: richer); me keeping my engagement a secret for three and a half years to prevent nuclear-grade family fallout; and now Charles and Mary, recording an altered version of their path to marriage for posterity because they want to wipe out the fact that to Charles, Mary was second fiddle to me for many years, even though those years were ancient history when Charles and I were essentially still children, and she has owned Charles’ heart, at least whatever of it there was to give, for the entirety of his adult life.
We all know, though, why Charles and Mary set up that little performance; it’s because they want Grandma to have the chance to see them getting engaged, to feel assured that Mary will have a good husband from a decent family to take care of her for life. And honestly, Mary needs it; ever since she was born premature and fragile, she was the one who always needed to be protected. Liz will do all right, she’s the “it” girl who will never let a man get her down, and over the years, I’ve toughened up a ton as I saw and experienced more of the real world, for that’s part and parcel of becoming a military spouse. But Mary, she’s the only one who can’t survive without being wrapped up in cotton wool, and so it’s probably fitting that she’s the one who settled down first (at least publicly) with a model match by Grandma’s definitions.
“Anne, now that Mary’s well settled, I only have one regret,” says Grandma one evening after everyone else has gone home. “You have such a kind and pure heart, and I won’t rest easy without knowing that you have a good man to take care of you, a man who will treasure and cherish you the way you deserve. Your mom had almost everything I ever wanted for her, except the one most important thing in life, which was to be respected within her marriage and the family she married into. Walter never valued her the way he should, and that’s the one thing I wish you would have within my lifetime. But I suppose, it isn’t meant to be.”
“Grandma,” I take a deep breath, as I take her hand, willing myself to gather up all my courage. “You won’t need to worry about me, honest. Because I do have someone – I’ve had the same someone in my life all these years, and it’ll be eight years this fall, come November. I have a man who’s waiting for me, he’s already waited through four years and two major deployments, and after all this time, I’m still absolutely sure that he’s the only man I want to be with for the rest of my life.”
“Eight years ago,” says Grandma slowly and thoughtfully. “Eight years ago, you applied early decision to MIT. You had been such a sweet, polite, and obedient girl, until you went off to boarding school and became this headstrong little thing, always wanting to be independent. You insisted on driving yourself to college, saying you could save your father the expense of shipping your car there; though looking at the way of things now, perhaps you did have the right of it after all.
“And then you went head over heels about a boy that year, an upstart kid from the ghetto you somehow met in one of your classes over there. You were so infatuated with that young man, though for the life of me I don’t understand why; you wouldn’t give poor Charles the time of day, even though he was utterly besotted with you. But I never thought such a relationship – if it could even be called one – would ever stand the test of time. He’d never be able to look after you the way you deserve, not when he didn’t know any way of existing except from hand to mouth.”
“But he has,” I point out. “He has been looking after me, all this while. He’s the reason why I’ve been able to afford our help and still have a decent amount of money saved up in the bank. And Sophia, who’s been here with me day and night – she… she’s his sister.”
The only reply I get from Grandma is a silent nod, her mouth drawn into a tight straight line, before she closes her eyes, a signal that this conversation is over. I suppose it’s already as much as I can hope for anyway, to get acknowledgement; for I’ve never been rash enough to believe it possible to aim for approval.
“Good night, Grandma,” I say to her. “I’ll see you in the morning tomorrow.”
And the only indication I have that she hears me is the nod I get in reply, before I switch off the lights and settle down on the sofa bed, alone with my thoughts as I ponder the youthful “infatuations” of Elliot daughters come and gone: Mom’s with Father, Liz’s with William, Mary’s with Charles, and mine with Fred. If there’s anything all the Elliot women have had in common through the generations, I realize, it’s been our tendency to fall in love young; though I, the only one who dared to pursue a life and a partner outside the traditional Elliot mould, might well become the only one who won’t wind up having my youthful memories of love tainted with disappointment, jealousy, or regret.
Week five is when we get to a turning point of sorts – Grandma no longer has the strength to make it to the bathroom, so we start using a bedpan and adult diapers instead, and the trays she gets at mealtimes are hardly touched even though I try my best to tempt her, even offering her morsels of the fancy meals that Father brings in for the rest of us. Sensing what might be in store, Sophia no longer alternates with me to spend the nights; even though we’re technically only allowed to have one caregiver staying over per guest, we resolutely take shifts sleeping on the single sofa bed and sitting up in a chair, exploiting every loophole they might have by posing as a guest and a caregiver, with complete disregard for the limitations on visiting hours. And they close one eye to us even though they know we’re flouting the rules, because they know what’s going to come, and that I won’t be able to handle it alone.
On Saturday morning, Cheyenne bursts into the room bright and early, the minute visiting hours open up.
“Anne, you need some fresh air,” she declares, taking in my bedraggled appearance and unwashed hair. “Let’s go for a short run, and then I’ll take you home for a shower before you come back. You’ll only be away for an hour or so – and you’ll feel so much better after this.”
A change of environment and a shower sounds like heaven to me, so I agree; and as we break into a leisurely jog along the lakefront, on a warm, sunny morning for February, I start to feel a little more like my usual self again. Then I see her – an elderly lady, wrapped up in a warm puffy coat with a blanket across her knees, sitting in a wheelchair enjoying the lake view, with a younger woman who must be her daughter, by her side. Reflexively, the same thought I’ve always had for twenty years straight since my childhood enters my mind:
I’m so thankful my grandma is healthy for her age and doesn’t need to be confined to a wheelchair
. And then I stop short in my tracks, realizing that isn’t even true anymore – for now, Grandma is confined in hospital, with an unknown quotient of life left to go, in an even worse state than being in a wheelchair.
Cheyenne, who is a few paces ahead of me, must’ve realized when my footsteps ground to a halt, for she turns around and comes back to me, putting an arm around my shoulders.
“Anne, don’t cry,” she says gently. “It’s OK, we’ll go back now, and then I’ll bring you right back to your grandma, OK? It’ll be fine, honest.”
I follow her blindly as she leads me back to her car and then drives me back to the hospital. Like a sleepwalker, I navigate the hallways, for by now, the location of Grandma’s room is imprinted deeply in my subconscious. We’ve only been gone around half an hour, and she’s still sleeping peacefully, as is Sophia, who told me she’s not a morning person and waking her up early on weekends would put me in deathly peril. So, I absently grab the topmost set of clean clothes from my duffel bag, and then head straight for the bathroom, turning on the shower at full blast to wash my sweat and tears away.
As week six unfolds, my heart breaks over and over again as the ritual of changing adult diapers becomes the only thing punctuating Sophia’s and my days. Grandma has always been petite, but I never quite realized just how much the illness has shrunk her. The surgery, of course, has taken its toll; and for every month since she started having to use a walker, she’s become a little frailer, a little thinner, a little more bent. And what I see now is the cumulative effect of all these months, chipping away a little more each time at her strength and her dignity, until all that is left now is barely more than a shell of skin and bones. I start chiding myself for all the times I used to wish to stretch out time, for I wonder how much she may have been suffering, whether she might have been in pain with me none the wiser, through these three long years. And that is when I begin to feel ready to let go; not for my own sake, but for hers, because I know that letting go is the only way that I can release her from her suffering.
By the beginning of the seventh week, Grandma spends almost all of her time sleeping, and hardly ever speaks anymore. She sleeps with her mouth half open, her breath coming in shallow gasps, and I spend the hours on tenterhooks, knowing and dreading and praying all at the same time. Even though Grandma is beyond all conversation by now, Father, Liz and Mary hang about for hours every day, lackadaisically flipping through the channels on the TV which is perpetually set to mute. The whole Musgrove family pops by, with their perennially cheerful faces assuming a sombre attitude for once. Hetty and Lulu burst into hysterical tears when they see Grandma, and I need to usher them out into the hallway before they upset everyone else in the room. I bring them down to the food court where I buy them the most decadent ice cream sundaes I’ve ever seen, then text their parents to let them know where we’re waiting so they can collect the twins whenever they’re ready to go home.
All this time, Sophia has remained doggedly by my side, determined that I should not be alone when the fateful moment happens. Yet as we slip into the weekend and Grandma still hangs on in there, her vital signals still going steady although she’s unconscious all day by now, we realize that we don’t know how long more of a road we’re still in for. On Sunday close to noon, when Father, Liz and Mary show up after brunch, Sophia declares that she’s taking me home to freshen up. I’ve gone through all the clothing in my duffel bag twice over already, and my hair feels completely ratty because I haven’t washed it in a week, so a refresh and recharge are much welcomed and needed.
It's around 2 p.m. when Sophia and I get back to the hospital; this quick pit-stop has been barely enough for us to toss the past week’s laundry into the washer, and for us to get quick showers and wash our hair. The house, in any case, is in a complete shambles because nobody has done any proper cleaning for the last seven weeks, ever since before Grandma got admitted to the hospital, but this isn’t the right time for us to bother about that. What takes us completely unawares, though, is that the most rarefied of all our guests in the first few weeks, Madam Dalrymple and Miss Carteret, have actually come back; they’re in the room, talking to Grandma even though they know she can’t answer, saying the usual polite nothings they always say. They did tell us that even if Grandma can’t talk to us, she’ll still be able to hear, so I hope she knows they’re here and haven’t forgotten us, which should give her the assurance that all is right in the Elliot world.
As they keep talking, the thermometer beeps, and I realize that Grandma is starting to spike a fever. Sophia dashes to the bathroom to grab a bowl and wet a cloth, which I place on her forehead. And then, it happens all too quickly; the vital signs, which were slow but steady all these days, start to plummet quickly, and in less than half an hour, she’s gone.
All this time, we take turns to speak into her ear, telling her how much we love her; it’s what the doctors said we need to do, because hearing is the last sense to go. I keep on saying the words, over and over again, struggling to keep the tears out of my voice, all the way until the nurse ushers us out of the room so she can start cleaning Grandma up and unhooking her from all the machines.
And then I slump into a plastic chair in the hallway, my whole world spinning around uncontrollably.
She’s gone
, I realize, and slowly, a strange sense of peace creeps in around the borders of my immense sense of loss, blanketing me in a shroud of stillness and darkness. I picture Grandma in a far away galaxy, smiling down at me, whole and healthy again at last.
In the course of everything after that, the one thing that anchors me is the constant of Sophia’s arm around my shoulders; she’s the one who dives back into the hospital room to retrieve our duffel bags, who leads me along an endless set of hidden corridors as we follow Grandma, whom they wheel in a sealed box, down to the morgue; and who holds me in her arms when they open up that box to allow us to identify Grandma’s corpse, a shrivelled shell of her former self, the one I knew and loved, before the undertakers come to collect her.
I hardly know what excuses I gave to Father, Liz and Mary before getting into Sophia’s car, for with Grandma being gone, it doesn’t matter anymore what they think or whether they know who she really is. Sophia drives us back to AJ’s parents’ apartment building, grabbing our duffel bags from the trunk and handing me mine before we make our way upstairs.
“You poor child,” says Mrs. Croft, enveloping me in a giant hug. “I’m so sorry.”
Nobody expects anything out of me at the Crofts’; I spend the rest of the day blankly staring at a wall as afternoon turns into evening, and food materializes in front of me at some point. I pick at it, for I know I need to eat even though everything tastes like cardboard, and when they realize I’m done, the plate just disappears as if by magic. Mostly I am overwhelmed and immobilized, both by the suddenness of it all as well as the sea of conflicting emotions: sadness, emptiness, loss, guilt, and yet relief. Yes, relief – for, I realize, I’ve done it; to the best of my ability, I’ve ridden this journey with Grandma all the way to the end, making sure she knew she was loved every inch of the way, and doing the best I could to mitigate whatever pain and suffering I knew of at every stage of this battle. Three years and two months – that was far more than the doctors had dared to promise us, and greedily, I’d wanted more and then some. But more, at what cost? Would I have wanted to drag out the last three weeks into another year, into infinity? Buried as I am in my complex world of grief, I let the everyday sounds of the apartment pass me by, as I huddle into a ball on the couch, letting my tears flow as they may.
The hours pass, and someone wraps me in a blanket; it’s Sophia. She tells me it’s time to go to bed and invites me to join her in the guest bedroom, so I can have a proper place to get a good night’s rest, for all of us have been terribly sleep-deprived the past few days. And with her comforting presence next to me, slumber eventually claims me.
We sleep well into the morning, for both of us are bone tired after all the interrupted nights in the hospital. As I sit at the Crofts’ kitchen counter, still in a daze, shovelling cold cereal mechanically into my mouth, my cell phone goes off – of course, it’s Father.
“Anne, where are you?” he asks. “You went off with the help last night, and we were so worried when you never came home.”
“I’m staying with a friend for a while,” I reply. “I’m sorry if I worried you. But I was so out of it, and I can’t bear to come back and see the house without Grandma in it, not yet. Please give me some time.”
Father clears his throat loudly to convey his disapproval, before he continues. “Ahem. I know it’s difficult for all of you, and Elizabeth and Mary are also as grieved as you are. As am I. But you’ll regret it if you don’t do your filial duty. Tomorrow, we’re going to the funeral home to pick out the casket and flowers, and I hope you’ll deign to come. It’s the one last thing that we, as a family, can do for your grandmother.”
Without a word of complaint, Sophia delivers me to the funeral home and waits outside; she knows she’s persona non grata in this family affair. I hate all of this, the ornate wooden caskets with their silk linings and the elaborate floral wreaths, all empty symbols of pomp and circumstance that can’t gild the simple truth that she’s gone, and she won’t be seeing the inside of our house again. Mutely, I nod or shake my head at all the options, letting Father have his way about things. The only one thing I pick out is her photograph, an old one from the early ‘50s with her hair in a stylish permed bob, tucked behind her ears to show off her pearl earrings, her head cocked at an angle just so and her chin resting on a delicate gloved hand. She already was the mom of an elementary school-age child back then, but she still looked as if she hadn’t a care in the world, and that’s how I want to remember her.
The rest of the week passes in a state of half dream and half reality; usually, I always try to be helpful and useful, but ever since the day Grandma passed on, I’ve been like a dead weight. Even though a tiny portion of my conscience pricks me about imposing on the Crofts, I have nowhere else to go, for I still can’t fathom the thought of seeing Grandma’s house without her in it. Although the Crofts’ apartment has only two bedrooms for its four inhabitants, with me, practically a stranger, intruding on their territory, I still feel as if I have more space than I would have had back home with my family, for all of them dance around me without judging, without prying, and without asking me to do anything; they’re willing to let me just be, even though I pass each day as it comes, not knowing when I’ll ever wake up to a day when I feel like becoming a normal functioning human being again.
On the day of the funeral, an early day in March, it’s unreasonably warm and sunny again, almost as if the outside world is urging me out of my grief and teasing me to re-participate in it. I see all the same people who filed into and out of Grandma’s room in the first weeks of her hospitalization gathered at the church, all sombrely decked out in black. Father and Liz weep decorously and silently, while Mary ugly cries noisily through the entire service, even though I put an arm around her shoulders and stroke her arm, as Father admonishes her to keep quiet every now and then with a stern finger on his lips. The service goes on and on, feeling almost interminable, until it’s Father’s turn to deliver the eulogy.
“We are gathered today in memory of my dearest mother-in-law, Mrs. Rowena Stevenson,” he intones. “I could not be more indebted to anyone other than her, for it is she who raised my three daughters after the unfortunate demise of their mother when my eldest was barely out of the nursery.
“As you all know, respectability is paramount in the Elliot family. And that is exactly what I owe to Rowena – her time and her effort in making my girls into the three young women you see today, who are, for the most part, the very image of decorum and propriety. When I met her daughter, who later became my dear wife, back in the heady times of the sixties, we were carefree students whose only wish was to take in the sights of Paris. And that we did, for I will be eternally grateful to Rowena and her dearly departed husband for allowing their precious daughter to spend a year in France with me, which turned out to be the very best year of our lives.
“When we came back, I knew I had met my soul mate in Elizabeth, known affectionately as ‘Eli’ to Rowena and everyone else who was closest to her. Even though Eli was taken from us far too soon, Rowena was the one who kept her spirit alive in my household, taking her place to read bedtime stories to my girls, ensure they had a good education, and see my Elizabeth Ann, my wife’s dearest namesake, to a successful pageant career before the age of ten. My younger daughters, Anne and Mary, who were mere infants when their mother passed from this world, would never have amounted to anything if Rowena hadn’t taken them in line and cultivated them to assume their rightful places in society. Even during her final, tragic illness, she was the one who housed them after Elizabeth and I relocated to Palm Beach for my retirement, and I hope they have learned enough at her knee to become virtuous and proper Elliot women even without the benefit of her guidance moving forward.
“I have been most blessed to have a mother-in-law like Rowena, and she shall be dearly missed in the Elliot home. Thank you for coming here to celebrate her life with me, and I hope that for all of you, as for my dear daughters and myself, her memory will always stay alive.”
Somehow, just like always, Father’s managed to make the eulogy all about
him
. About him, the Elliot legacy, and the Elliot family pride, to be exact. He doesn’t even care that I, not Grandma, was the one holding up this household in his absence for the past three years, not that I want him to blow my trumpet when this day is supposed to be all about Grandma. But still – I regret, for I wish I had thought of volunteering to give a eulogy instead of spending the whole week treading water in the Crofts’ apartment, running away from it all. I could’ve done Grandma better justice, and given her the respect that she was due, but because I was a coward, I’ve eternally forfeited my chance.
That thought is the one that haunts me all the way through the burial service, even as I toss the bouquet in my hands onto the casket before they cover it with earth. Resolutely, I focus my eyes on the framed photo propped up against the headstone, showing how pretty and carefree she was before Mom brought Father into her life, before we came along and she had to go back to changing diapers, kissing scrapes, and dealing with all manner of girl drama. That’s how I want her to be – whole and happy and carefree again, and I want to believe that up in heaven, she’s smiling down on me like that right now. I may have done the one thing that disappointed her deeply in choosing Fred, but I swear I’ll atone for it by having a steady, frugal and responsible life from now on, so I can do her proud.
When Sophia delivers me back to the Crofts’ apartment after the funeral, Fred’s already there; he made his leave and travel arrangements the minute he heard the news.
“Anne, how are you?” he asks, gently brushing the side of my face with his hand. And it’s the obvious concern in his eyes, plainly reflecting how worn down I feel, that breaks down all my remaining defences.
“I’m OK,” I start to lie, before my true feelings break out from the dam that I’d carefully constructed all week. “No, I’m not OK. I don’t want to go back to a home without Grandma in it, so I’m hanging out here, even though I’m useless and don’t help out with anything, and there isn’t enough space here for all of us, especially now when you’re here too. I missed my chance to give a eulogy and tell the world just how special Grandma was to me and to our family. I’ve got to go back to work now, because my reason for being on FMLA is gone, but I’ve forgotten how to do anything because Grandma’s the only thing I’ve thought about for the past two months. I – I don’t know. I just feel so tired, and I don’t know what I’m going to do from now on.” All my energy spent, I wrap my arms around him and bury my face directly into his chest, my shoulders shaking as I finally allow myself to cry my eyes out.
Wordlessly, Fred holds me in his arms as I sob into his shirt, and I feel his hot tears hitting the top of my head tucked under his chin. I know his tears are for me, not for Grandma; for he has never met Grandma in his life, and all the information he has about her is by proxy from me. He’s only ever come by our house once, at the end of that summer after freshman year when he got his private pilot licence. Apparently, Father had found him cruising around our neighbourhood, though he wouldn’t let Fred come in to see me, so the only way I knew about it was because Father later asked me if I really had a black boyfriend, because he was certain that Fred was an impostor.
“Did he look like this?” I’d asked, holding up a photo.
“How could I possibly tell?” Father had said. “To me, they all look the same.”
That incident was pretty much the start and end of any association Fred had had with Father and Grandma, and yet he has to tolerate my grief for a person who never got to know him and never wanted anything to do with him. We spend that night camped out in the Crofts’ living room in silent but companionable grief; at some point, he brings me a tray of food and urges me to eat, but for the most part we simply hold onto each other as he lets me cry myself to sleep.
It's only the next day that he springs into action, waking me up gently in the morning.
“Anne, you’ll need to go home sooner or later,” he says. “So I’m gonna go home with you, and see you settled before I get back to base. When are your folks leaving?”
“Today,” I reply. “They said they’d stay until the funeral, and then they’ll go back to Florida. They said they’ve left the condo for too long, in fact, though none of us could possibly help it.”
“OK. We’ll go tomorrow, then. And for today, you gotta listen to my command, because I’m a First Lieutenant now and am up to be made Captain anytime. And I command you, to go get some breakfast and then we’ll go get ourselves outside.”
After breakfast, we walk to the #12 bus stop and take it to Belle Isle. I never knew that getting out of my inertia and the confines of the Croft apartment would make me feel this much better, but somehow, the fresh outdoor air helps me to clear my thoughts. We stroll at a leisurely pace to the beach, where we plop down side by side on the sand, staring at the Detroit skyline across the river.
“Feel better now?” he asks.
“Kind of,” I reply. “It just feels weird, to be getting back into life when Grandma’s gone. And I still feel at odds about wanting her to be in a better place, when none of us know whether things are really better on the other side of this life. I mean, there are so many things about her illness that I missed, and so she may have suffered more on this side of the earth than she needed to, and that makes me feel guilty. And in spite of all that, a part of me is relieved and thankful for her suffering to be over, even though I just wish we had more time with her. If I love her, how could I want anything but more time?”
“Did she ever tell you how she felt about it?”
“She said, once, that eighty-eight years was a good long life, and that I shouldn’t be worried about her because she was fine. But still, I wish I’d done more to make her proud.”
“We’ll always want more time for the folks we love. I wanted more for my mama, too. She never saw her thirty-seventh birthday,” he states, matter-of-factly. “She never lived to see me graduate, get my commission, never saw me being a winner at life. But I think she knew Sophia would raise me right, and so she didn’t regret when she let go. And your grandma, I’d like to think you turned out so well, she’d have no regrets too.”
“I hope so,” I reply, the spring breeze caressing my face. “I sure hope so.”
Fred brings me back to Grandma’s house the next day, and I see that my Golf is neatly parked in the driveway; somebody, probably Sophia, had the presence of mind to retrieve it from the hospital parking lot after I’d abandoned it there. To my surprise, everything is spick and span even though the whole house was a dusty mess the last time I set foot in there. A note left by Father on the side table in the living room gives me the explanation why:
Anne
, Father has written in his elaborate cursive script full of curlicues.
Remember you will always be an Elliot and make this house worthy of our name again. We called in someone to restore it to our usual standards, and I hope you will keep it this way.
Over the next couple of days, Fred lives with me in Grandma’s house; it doesn’t feel right to usurp anyone’s space, so we occupy my usual room even though it’s the smallest one and nobody else is here, as Charles has also informed me by text that Mary is staying with him. Fred makes sure we do all the most difficult things while he’s with me, even though he needs to become a bit of a drill sergeant on purpose to keep me moving forward. We manage to pack up and donate all the medical stuff Sophia brought back from the hospital: Grandma’s walking frame, the remaining stash of adult diapers, and the unopened cans of powdered Ensure I stocked up in the pantry before her final hospitalization. Even though we go through her clothes, makeup, and shoes too, sorting everything out neatly, I decide I’m not ready to send any of it away just yet.
“What are you gonna do about this house?” he asks. “You won’t be here for long, till you come live with me.”
“I’m not sure if I’ll have any say about that,” I admit. “For all I know, it might go to Father, not to me.”
Even though Fred has to leave after a few days, Sophia takes his place so that I won’t be alone. And the following week, after I’ve gone back to work, I get an unexpected call from Mr. Shepherd.
“Miss Elliot, have you ever read your grandmother’s will?” he asks.
“No, why?”
“Well, it’s only right for me to tell you what you’ll be receiving, then, after the probate process is complete. She left her house to you.”
“To me? Why me, and not Father?”
“Your father is well provided for,” says Mr. Shepherd in his officious voice. “Mrs. Stevenson was very thorough about dividing her estate into equal portions. Your father and your elder sister will be getting equal shares in her unit trusts, so they can add the interest to the family income. Your younger sister, Miss Mary Elliot, will get all her jewellery and all her cash, so she can pay off her student loans for her higher education. And her house, which would have been passed on to her daughter if she had not predeceased her, is for you.”
I ponder the ramifications of that for days, wondering how to make the best use of this legacy when I don’t plan to be in the area for much longer. And then, it hits me – what if I can help Mary to start her life with Charles on the right footing, so they’ll be able to stand on their own and won’t become a further drain to the family finances? I could rent this home to them, at a rate they can afford, and once they pay up enough to cover the market value of the house, interest free, I’ll sign it over to them. Then Mary’s inheritance will be more than enough to pay off her student loan debt from her two years of university, since her two years of community college cost very little. And even though her dorm is a sunk cost this semester, she can start living here instead for the next school year, because I now have enough saved up to get her a car, though it’ll have to be a used one.
Sophia approves heartily of my plan and spends the remainder of her time in Detroit setting Mary and me up for our future lives. As Sophia walks me through everything that I need to know in order to manage a household on my own, I’m horrified and mortified to find that I was so financially illiterate; I honestly had no idea how many health insurance policies I had, or that I was signed up to a policy at work while Father was getting Mr. Shepherd to take one out on me at the same time. She shows me so many things – what the title on a house should look like, how much home and car insurance will cost, how to fill out income tax forms properly, and all the things I need to budget for to keep a home in good shape.
“I guess I should be ashamed of myself,” I admit. “Mr. Shepherd took care of so many things for Father and Grandma, that I don’t even know how to handle the basics.”
“Everyone needs someone to teach them,” points out Sophia. “And I never had anyone showing me this stuff too, so I learned it all the hard way after I married AJ. But now that you’ll be marrying Fred before long, he’ll be counting on you for all this, the way AJ needs me to handle it for him.”
“You mean, didn’t you teach Fred all this stuff too?”
“Some of it, yeah,” she says. “But don’t be surprised if Fred is more sheltered than you about all these things, ‘cause everything he’s got was given to him by the military. Just like AJ, he hasn’t got a thing on him that wasn’t issued by the Navy.” She chuckles.
As for Mary, Sophia and Mrs. Musgrove go all-in on preparing her to be a wife, too. With it being almost April already, we know it’s probably a lost cause sending her back to her dorm, so she stays on with Charles since Sophia has taken over her old room over here. When she comes over with Charles on the weekends, we teach them both how to cook, and also bring them out grocery shopping so they know how much stuff costs. I split the chores equally between her, Sophia and me, rotating tasks so she gets to do something for the house every week.
The weeks go by, and then months; as spring semester wraps up, I hand over my keys to Mary and pack up to move to Texas, where I’ve found an apartment close to Fred’s base to live for now, as well as a new job in San Antonio. And once Sophia has deposited me safely with Fred, taking this chance to visit him at his base while she’s at it, she’ll have her own sweet reunion with AJ too. As she and I get ready to board our flight to San Antonio, I hold my head high, knowing I’ve made it through the worst of my struggles, and ready to move forward into my life with Fred, back together at last.
Posted on 2022-05-04
Part III – Chapter 8 (Anne)
May 2004, San Antonio, Texas
Frederick has always said he was born lucky, which is amazing when you consider how he’s been
not
lucky at all in a lot of fundamental aspects of his life. And the crazy thing is, despite his supreme unluckiness, he still ends up having incredible luck over and over again, in some of the weirdest ways. First of all, he won the sibling lottery with Sophia – she raised him amazingly well when she was so young herself, and she’s done such a wonderful job getting me through those last harrowing months of Grandma’s illness, doing so much more for Grandma and me than my own birth sisters did. Then AJ got into the NESEP program which paid for him to go to college, which meant he could marry Sophia and move Fred to Westland just in time to start high school outside the inner city. And of course, there’s his scholarship, because getting into ROTC is not a guarantee of a full ride, but Fred got the best type of package they had. And his commission, and his pilot slot, and his wings, and being assigned to the F-16, though he did work his tail off for all those things, so it wasn’t just about luck alone. The latest instance of his luck, though, had very little skill in it except maybe persistence – which is that whenever he hasn’t been deployed overseas, he’s always managed to somehow find a space for himself in the dorms on base, which officers can only get if they have enough space after housing all the enlisted airmen. That way, he could practically live on air: no rent, free food at the chow hall, and no need to spend money on a car since he could walk or bike to just about any place he needed to be.
Well, now that we’re both able to be in the same city with two graduate-level salaries between us, Frederick’s days of living on air and my state of being trapped in a not-so-gilded-anymore cage are thankfully at an end. Normalcy, in the shape of a rented one-bedroom apartment in San Antonio, is a welcome contrast to all the years of being forced to stay apart and go underground about our relationship. And while taking over any furniture the graduating seniors were selling or leaving on the curb was OK when we were in college, we know we’ve made it when we hit the level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs where decent-looking furniture, matching colour schemes, and aesthetic interiors are considered essential. Which brings us to yet another relationship milestone, of course – our first trip to IKEA!
Our first
odyssey
to IKEA is probably a more appropriate word for the whole affair, for the nearest store is in Houston, so we need to rent a truck and make a three-hour drive each way on a Saturday. That’s just about getting there, and then there’s the business of getting through the labyrinth of room mock-ups without being side-tracked by all the distractions right and left.
“Now I know why Father’s house has so many mirrors,” I remark with a shudder as we make our way through cubicle-sized exhibits showing all the clever tricks to make tiny spaces look and feel like livable rooms. “That was a relatively cheap way to make it look twice as monstrous.”
Everything we see is a potential project, and between us, we might as well buy up the whole store – Fred prefers an ultra-contemporary industrial look, whereas I’m more into a cozy, rustic country kind of style. There’s the metal frame shelving which could look the part if we painted the metal parts the right shade of gunmetal grey and stained the wooden shelves, and a dining set I’d love to re-upholster with eye-catching print fabric, and… after three hours of following the meandering pathways through the store, we land up in front of the checkout counters with three sheets of college-ruled paper covered on both sides with pencil scribblings and drawings.
Fred tots up the cost of everything we listed out, in money and in time, penciling in $20,000 and 200 work-hours in the bottom corner of the very last sheet of our notes. O…M…G…, I think silently.
“Hey,” he says. “We got five hundred square feet, not five thousand. And I have no idea if we’ll have to move again before we get to finish all those projects. Guess we really got ahead of ourselves, going to town like that.”
So, we end up starting all over again, paying special attention to the tricked-out tiny spaces and how they manage to max out the amount of stuff you can cram into them. Our new list ends up becoming all about blend-into-the-walls multifunctional units with tons of practical storage space, though we decide to leave off any extra built-in mirrors even though it’ll make our space look a little less claustrophobic, because I have no intention to perpetuate another generation of Elliot vanity. Anyway, it’s not like this will be our forever home, for as long as Fred stays in the military, we’ll have hardly any say on how long we can stay in any of our physical homes. Just like that, I’ve gone from having decades-long roots in Grosse Pointe to a concept of a “forever home” that’s tied to a person, but not a place, for wherever Fred goes will be where I call home from now on.
“I hope our instincts were sharp enough to avoid the husband killers,” I say with an exhausted sigh as I plop down amidst the stacks of unassembled plywood after we finally make it home and unload everything into the apartment.
“Well, the people who called them that probably weren’t marrying Rosie the Riveter,” Fred quips. “You’re so capable, we’ll get all this stuff up in record time tomorrow.”
As always, Frederick is like the Energizer bunny; first thing Sunday morning, he’s up and about hammering together whatever he thinks will fit. I get a little nervous looking at him, so I quickly grab the instruction sheet to figure out how the pieces should go together step by step, lining everything up in its proper sequence for him before joining in the assembly operations. With my subtle redirection, within half a day civilization sprouts up from our bare carpeted floor, and by the end of the day, we’ve managed to get our basic, spartan accommodations to approximate some level of urban chic: a sea of neutrals, whites and beiges with the occasional pop of colour from my mini potted plants and whimsical accent pieces. We’re so proud of our new digs, I post the photos immediately on Facebook to share with Sophia.
“You’d better hope your kids take after you, Anne,” she says, laughing. “If you end up with mini-mes of Fred, all that white won’t stay white for long.”
“I’m not sure my younger self would be any better, actually,” I admit. “When I was four, I was really into Hello Kitty and loved drawing furry kittens in pencil on any surface that even remotely resembled sketchbook paper. That’s why Father had to cover my room with pink polka dot wallpaper after I outgrew that phase.”
“Still water runs deep,” remarks Fred with an amused grin. “That’s our Anne, all right.”
There’s less than half a year for us to plan our wedding; I still feel somewhat off kilter about having a joyous occasion so soon after Grandma’s passing, but at the same time, I know Frederick has been waiting so long for us to be together, and I want to become his official next-of-kin before he gets sent anywhere again. Being military does simplify things, though, as we have a ready venue with the chapel at his base and he already has his dress uniform. And when I packed up to come down to San Antonio, I shipped my old debutante dress over to Elise in Cambridge to refashion into a wedding gown, so I’m pretty much all set too.
In any case, the forward motion of life rolls on like a snowball, pushing me along with it; Frederick hits four years of service, so the next thing I know, we’re getting ready to celebrate the occasion of his promotion to Captain.
“Thanks, but it’s OK really, you should save the trip for the big party in the fall,” he tells Edward on the phone; he’s referring to the fact that Ed will want to fly in for our wedding, so he shouldn’t feel obliged to shell out for two trips across the pond this year. “I still got one more rank to go before gettin’ a cake, anyway.”
Tom Harville sends his regrets too, though we already expected that he wouldn’t be able to make it. In his email, he attaches a photo of his family hanging out at Venice Beach, at work putting the finishing touches on a crazily elaborate sandcastle that could only have been designed by him. The four of them – Harville, his wife Elinor, and their two kids Michael and Mia – are all towheaded with the same light sprinkle of freckles and lopsided, good-natured smiles, and nobody looking at this photo could possibly have guessed that they’re not a biological family.
“That’s my hero,” I say to Fred. “He’s amazing.”
“What, I’m not your hero anymore?” replies Fred in mock disappointment. “Just kidding. I sure couldn’t do what Harville’s doing, he’s da boss, man.”
All the way through college, Harville never had any girlfriends; he grew up in a staunch Catholic family, and he didn’t want to get involved with girls until he had the means to get married. Right after he graduated and went to work at Lockheed in Palmdale, Tom met Elinor at church, and last year, aged twenty-five and twenty-three, they adopted four-year-old Michael and two-year-old Mia after just one year of marriage. When they got married, Tom and Elinor had already agreed to build their family through adoption from the foster system, and they felt strongly that birth siblings should stay together, so they went directly from being young newlyweds to becoming the parents of two toddlers, both old enough to remember parents who weren’t them. It’s been a rough year for them, and I know that one Hallmark moment at the beach, posing with their windblown hair in the matching rash guards I sent them last Christmas, belies a long daily struggle I can hardly imagine. That’s why Harville is my ultimate hero, hands down.
Sophia needs to ration her trips out to see us too, because she’s forsaken her business for too long after having gone to Detroit for me. Instead, she sends AJ to attend Fred’s promotion ceremony, a tall, hulking giant of a man with a shiny bald head and a booming, good-natured voice.
“You did good, bruddah,” says AJ approvingly as he and I simultaneously unpin the single silver bars from each of Fred’s shoulders, replacing them with the two silver bars for Captain.
“All because of you, AJ,” says Fred. Seeing them side by side in their dress uniforms, with matching pairs of silver bars on their epaulets, I realize they’re the same rank now, for AJ still has one more year to go before he can be promoted to Lieutenant Commander in the Navy. After we finish pinning Fred’s new insignia and step back, they exchange salutes as a courtesy before we step down from the stage.
“This one’s special,” says Fred at the informal dinner we host for him after the ceremony, just AJ and him and me.
“Of course,” I point out. “You’re the first person in the family to attain the title of ‘Captain’. Sorry, AJ – I don’t mean to knock on the Navy, but them keeping ‘Lieutenant’ in your rank for over a decade isn’t exactly the kindest thing they could do to their officers.”
“Well, that, I suppose,” replies Fred, “but honestly, the bigger thing is, this is the first time I ever had this much family around me when I got a new rank. Everything else I got, except that one time” – he shoots me a knowing glance – “I never had any family around to celebrate and enjoy with; it’s wonderful not to be so lonely anymore.”
Following his promotion, Fred goes off to Squadron Officer School in Alabama for five weeks, and in his absence, I take a long weekend off to visit Elise in Cambridge so she can fit my dress.
“So, what’s this about you and William getting together?” I ask her right away when she picks me up at Logan Airport. “I’m sorry I was too busy to really catch up before, but now I want all the deets.”
“I understand,” says Elise. “And I’m real sorry about your grandma. It must be tough, with all the change you’ve gone through the last few months. But anyways, it’s good to see you and I’m really thankful that you can be with Fred again.”
“And now, about little ol’ me, like you asked,” she continues. “You know, Google Cambridge is growing so fast, we’ll be moving out to a new campus next year? Well, there’s now enough people in the office for them to set up a coffee stand, and nothing brings people together like free lattes. I was just standing in line, and there was William, picking up his drink. He came by and offered it to me, saying if I didn’t mind a caramel macchiato, he might as well spare me the wait. I felt kinda bad depriving him of his coffee, but he said it was the least he could do to make amends after how terribly he’d offended me the last time.
“After that, he said he had some news he wanted to share with a friend, pertaining to a matter that only I knew about, so could he catch up with me over dinner after work sometime? I knew exactly what he was referring to and why he would want to talk to someone about it, so how could I have the heart to say no? Since then, we’ve been seeing each other and hanging out with Gianna sometimes on the weekends, and she’s the sweetest girl I ever met. You’ll see, we’ll be meeting them at his place, and also going for dim sum with them on Sunday for brunch.”
Elise has worked magic with my gown; she removed that voluminous, cupcake-shaped skirt from the lace-up corset bodice, which still fits me, and replaced it with new fabric cut into an A-line silhouette with a train, layered over with floral lace motifs. Everything is basted together at the moment, waiting for my signal of approval.
“You like it?” asks Elise, helping me step daintily into the gown and pinning it closed behind me.
“Like it? I love it!” I haven’t been quite in the mood to be Bridezilla all these weeks, but at the sight of this dress with me in it, the concept that I’m finally going to have my long-awaited wedding in just a couple months’ time suddenly becomes concrete and real. “But Elise, I feel really bad you went to all this trouble, though; it’d have been fine to just take some volume out of the old fabric.”
“Well, it wasn’t long enough to give you the train I wanted for you,” points out Elise. “And I didn’t spend all that much, actually – I was able to get all the new material I needed from Jo-Ann. Take it as one more wedding gift from me. See, I’m so wonderful, you wouldn’t have guessed that if I didn’t tell you!”
After Elise pins and bastes the seams and notes down all the measurements, she takes me to William’s 19th-century Back Bay townhouse, with stately, ornate carved pillars framing the entry to the building. William steps out to greet us, and I can see a teenage girl standing behind him, her long rebonded hair framing her oval face, peering at me with shy almond eyes.
“A pleasure to meet you, Anne,” he says, extending a hand stiffly out to me. “And if you will allow me, I’d love to introduce you to my sister Gianna.”
“It’s really nice to meet you both,” I reply. “I went to college with Elise, as she probably told you, so I’m really excited to be back here reliving those days, and nothing could be better than to meet new friends who have Cambridge in common.”
William’s townhouse is bright and airy, with pristine whitewashed walls and built-in wooden shelves displaying an array of blue-and-white Delft pottery with a variety of ornate patterns – florals, windmills, and dragons. Persian rugs demarcate the living and dining areas, laid over the smooth, shiny hardwood flooring. A chandelier with six slender, curved arms hangs from the ceiling. The furniture, upholstered in muted shades of blue and white, have clean, elegant lines, unlike the imposing leather Chesterfield sofa and gaudy striped-print velvet Louis XV chairs that used to grace Father’s formal parlor against huge, frilly Austrian festoon blinds, which had been all competing for attention. Two violins hang kitty-corner to each other against the wall in a nook with a baby grand piano.
After we’re all settled in the living room, William serves us steaming cups of hot green tea, explaining that it’s called
longjing
tea, a special blend from Hangzhou, and he always gets some whenever he makes his annual visits back to China. As I sip the tea, marveling in its delicate, slightly nutty flavor, Elise gushes to William and Gianna about how well the dress fit; I gather she’s already told them many stories about all of us back in MIT. For years, she’s known that when Fred and I get married, I want her to be my maid-of-honor, but we had that settled between us long before she got involved with William, so now the whole purpose of this visit is for me to get to know William and Gianna a little, to make me feel comfortable inviting them too.
When we’re all done with our tea, Gianna picks up one of the violins and William takes up a seat at the piano. Even though Elise told me to forget everything I read in William’s email, of course I haven’t; how could I? William comes across as being so straight-laced that I’m sure he is incapable of hyperbole, and he certainly wasn’t exaggerating when he wrote about Gianna being a violin prodigy. She makes the violin sing in a uniquely feminine way, playing this slow, elegant melody, punctuated by William’s chords on the piano. Bach, I figure, for Father had made my sisters and me sit through enough piano lessons as children for me to have a rudimentary idea of the classical composers and what their music sounds like. Still, I always thought Bach’s music was sterile; it came before the era when it became popular (and accepted) to get over-the-top with your feelings in music. Yet even though Gianna plays with the absolute precision and purity of tone that you would expect from Baroque era music, not an extra embellishment or flourish anywhere, the emotion still shines through – a soothing, yearning tribute to everything that is beautiful in this world.
“
Arioso
, Cantata 156,” Elise tells me proudly. “I knew nothing about classical music until William and I got together, but they’re both fantastic musicians and it’s been a real eye opener listening to them play together.”
“Gianna’s the musician,” says William. “I’m just an amateur. In fact, I hadn’t played for a long time, until she started asking me to play with her.”
“You’re both so talented,” I say truthfully. “Father made me do piano lessons as a child and I stuck with it all the way till eighth grade, but I couldn’t play half as well as you do. William, why did you stop? You’re being too modest, to call yourself ‘just an amateur’; I enjoyed your playing very much.”
“I don’t take failure very well,” admits William after a deep breath and a long pause. “When I went to Andover, I used to be in orchestra, playing first violin like Gianna does now. It was one of the things that got me into Harvard. But when I auditioned for Harvard-Radcliffe, I didn’t make the cut. That was one of the things that hit me the hardest in my whole life. I love music, and before then, I thought I was a good musician. But after that failure, I knew otherwise, and I don’t do things to fail at them. That’s why it is one of my greatest joys to see my younger sister surpass my ability and make it. She’s so wise, she managed to talk me into playing again, when nobody else could.”
“What did she say?” I ask, intrigued.
“I…” Gianna hesitates shyly for a moment, then barrels on. “I told him, ‘Nobody is a professional everything!’ William might not be a professional violin player, but I can’t code to save my life, so there’s no way I could ever become a successful software engineer like him. I refuse to let him think he’s a failure, and I dare say getting into orchestra at Andover is enough proof of his musical skill.”
“William, why don’t you play something for Anne?” suggests Elise. “There’s that piece you played for me the other day, maybe you could try that again.”
Stiffly and shyly, William gets up from the piano and unhooks the other violin from the wall, while Gianna puts hers down and takes over from William at the piano. He looks blatantly self-conscious as he tucks the violin under his chin, but once he starts to play, he begins to thaw. Throughout the entire twenty minutes of the piece, he keeps his eyes shut and his posture stiffly straight, but all the changes of tempo, all the trills, come through with high drama. Interestingly, this piece doesn’t sound like any of the composers I learned about in my childhood piano lessons, in fact, the tune sounds somewhat Oriental, I think (I hope I got that right).
“What was that?” I ask, clapping enthusiastically after they wrap up. “It was really awesome, by the way.”
“It’s the
Butterfly Lovers
Violin Concerto,” says William. “One of the most famous pieces of Chinese classical music.” Realizing that he’s just uttered the word “lovers”, he immediately clams up in red-faced embarrassment and shifts his gaze awkwardly to the floor, like a middle-school boy on his first date.
“Um, let me try to explain,” pipes up Gianna. “
Butterfly Lovers
is an old Chinese story, it’s kind of like
Romeo and Juliet
except it’s much, much older. There’s this rich girl named Zhu Yingtai, and she fell in love with a poor boy called Liang Shanbo, whom she met while studying to be a
zhuang yuan
– a scholar – while disguised as a boy. But he didn’t know she was a girl, and after her parents made her go back home, she asked him to visit her family, thinking she could tell him the truth and they could get married. But by the time he got there, her parents had already got her engaged to be married to a rich man. So, he died of a broken heart and on the day of her wedding, she passed by his grave and that’s when she knew he died, and she stepped into his grave and died too. Eventually, they came back to the world as butterflies, which is how they got to be together forever, and that’s how the story got its name.”
“Isn’t that romantic?” sighs Elise. “And parts of it are a little like Anne and Frederick’s story too, except they’re getting married and can be happy together in this world. William, if Anne wishes it, would you play this song at their wedding? With Gianna?”
“That’s a great idea, Elise,” I say. “William, I’d love it if you were to play at my wedding, but only if you feel comfortable about it. And regardless of whether you do decide to play or not, you and Gianna are both invited, for sure.”
Even in his own home on a weekend, William was so starched and formal with a Brooks Brothers button-down shirt and tailored business dress trousers, and Gianna in a white blouse and preppy knife-pleated skirt. But when they pick Elise and me up on Sunday morning in matching Harvard T-shirts, jeans, and suede sneakers, I see a completely different side of them. William deftly parallel parks his Mercedes on a crowded street in Chinatown and leads us into a bustling restaurant where the only background music is the chatter of voices, and the aroma of stir-fry hangs in the air. This isn’t a posh place, it’s a family place; the huge round tables are packed so closely together we have to walk sideways to weave between them, and for every balding, bespectacled patriarch in a white short-sleeve cotton shirt and curly-haired matriarch in a flowy muumuu top, there’s several young people around our age with label sense that rivals Liz’s and far classier style sense than either of my sisters, some of whom have little kids in trendy togs and branded strollers. Despite the casual atmosphere, the food’s fit for kings and queens: we have “crystal dumplings” stuffed with shredded green chives and wrapped in transparent rice-flour skin, snow-white buns with a red barbecued-pork filling, and crispy yam puffs with deep-fried batter sticking out in an intricate lacy pattern. Every dish in its bamboo steamer basket is boldly flavourful in its own unique way, so unlike the understated palate that I’ve been used to from fine dining with my family.
Tucking into the spread, we soon get comfortable enough that the conversation doesn’t stop; Elise and I regale the Deng siblings with tales of all our shenanigans in high school and college. As I tell them about all the hairstyles Elise experimented with when we were at SEM, offering her services as a hairdresser to all and sundry, William suddenly puts down his chopsticks and looks up from his plate.
“That’s what I love about her,” he declares. “She’s so original.”
From Elise’s sharp intake of breath, I figure the “L” word has never come up in any of their prior conversations. Cluelessly, William picks his chopsticks back up, grabs a dumpling from the nearest bamboo steamer basket, and places it on Elise’s plate. “Here, eat,” he says, then turns back to his plate so nonchalantly that I wonder if we’d dreamed up the L-bomb he just dropped.
“Elise was born with a natural advantage,” I finally say to break the silence. “How could anyone not be original when they have a dad who makes a living out of telling little kids they can be the next Copernicus?”
After brunch, Gianna suggests that William and Elise could drop her off with me at Downtown Crossing, and she’ll take the T to Cambridge with me.
“Fei, she’s almost a sophomore,” says Elise in response to William’s sceptical look. “When we were that age, didn’t we all want a little space?”
“Anne?” Gianna turns to me, after Elise and William have dropped us off and left us to our own devices. “Elise always uses you as an example when she tells William he needs to treat me more like an adult. She said you already found your life partner when you were my age. Of course, I didn’t fully appreciate what she was talking about until I met you, but now that I kind of know you a little bit, you – you don’t seem to be all that different from me. And I know I’m not ready for any of that yet. So, if it’s OK for me to ask – how did you know? How did you get to be so confident when I still feel so young at nineteen?”
“Gianna,” I reply, “it’s perfectly OK to not be ready to think about settling down when you’re nineteen. Look at Elise – she’s my age, and she’s always been a very confident and attractive person, but still, well, you probably know more than me about the real lay of the land with her and William. These things, they’re not a measure of you as a person, and you shouldn’t think that you’re in any way inadequate or unattractive if you’re not dating somebody. Some of it is just about chance – about when somebody you come to care about enters your life, and then it takes on a life of its own.”
“Did Elise ever tell you about the background behind William and me?”
Even though I know I’m not telling the truth, I can’t break a confidence, so I shake my head and say, “No, won’t you please tell me?”
“Well, it’s probably no secret that I’m adopted. My parents never tried to keep it from me, not that they could when it’s obvious I look nothing like them or my younger siblings. And they’ve always been very upfront about keeping me in touch with the culture I was born in. Like, they named me ‘Gianna’ because they knew my birth name was ‘Jia’, and they wanted something which would sound like that. Even though they don’t know Chinese, they looked up what it means, and so I know my birth parents gave me a name that says I’m good. Superior.
“But then, why would they not want me if they really thought I was superior? For the longest time, I had a lot of cognitive dissonance around that; I always wondered, was getting into Harvard not enough? Getting into orchestra? It seemed like, no matter what I did, I’d never be good enough because my birth parents abandoned me.
“Six months ago, William came into my life. He reached out to me and told me he had looked into our background after he saw my concert. Ever since I got to know him, it’s answered a lot of questions. I now know that to some extent, my birth parents didn’t have a choice, though it still feels raw for me that being a girl and coming second automatically meant they didn’t keep me. But at least, he helps me connect with them. They don’t feel comfortable talking to me directly, but he passes emails between me and them, and I know they don’t hate me or anything.
“And connecting with my biological brother helps me know myself better too – I have a better idea of which parts of me are my culture, or my DNA, or just me. But I’m already nineteen, and I’m still getting to know myself. And that probably makes me behind, ‘cause finding yourself is something you’re supposed to do in high school. It doesn’t help either that I look like I’m still sixteen or seventeen.”
“Oh, Gianna,” I want to give her a hug, but I know she might not be comfortable with that yet, especially not on a public sidewalk. “Nobody is ever done finding themselves. I’m still discovering new things about myself, now that I’m transitioning from being a daughter and a sister and a granddaughter to becoming a wife. I guarantee you, nobody has it all figured out at nineteen – not Elise, probably not William, and definitely not me for sure.”
“Then how did you know? That Captain Wentworth was the one? How did you know you wouldn’t meet someone better for you down the road?”
“Well, I didn’t. But that wasn’t what mattered. By the time I came to terms with my feelings for Frederick, I had already been spending time with him daily for a whole semester as a friend, a classmate, and a running partner. It’s hard being in STEM, harder being a woman in STEM, and yet even harder when nobody in your family supports you being in it. As for him, it was incredibly hard growing up black in Detroit and then having to hold his own against prep-school kids at MIT. And on top of that, having to do those military courses where they throw all that jargon and leadership-speak at you. And so, I got him, and he got me, and I realized it was the real deal when I knew I was so invested in his success that I couldn’t think of anywhere else I wanted to be, except by his side contributing to it.”
“I hope,” Gianna falters, “I don’t know, William doesn’t exactly have the highest EQ on earth – don’t tell him I said that – but that’s the part I don’t know if it’s his culture, since I have the same genes as him, and I can see he isn’t doing a good job at telling anyone, including Elise, or should I say especially Elise, about his feelings. She’s good for him, that I know. She’s good for both of us.”
“It isn’t all on him,” I point out. “Maybe this is TMI, but I said the L-word to Frederick first.”
“You did?” Gianna stares at me in astonishment. “How did you get the courage to do so?”
“Necessity, rather than courage, was more like it,” I state. “He was going away for flying lessons in the summer, and I was staying on campus for summer school, like what you’re doing right now. And I didn’t want him to go without knowing how I felt about him, so I said it.”
“Well, I hope us leaving them alone for an afternoon gives them a push in the right direction. And I know you probably have a lot of things to do with your time, but will you mind if I call or text you sometimes? Not all the time, I don’t want to bother you too much, but when I need someone to talk to who isn’t my age, or my parents, or William, or Elise?”
“You bet,” I promise. “You can reach out to me anytime you want. And you know something? If you think back on all the things you said, nineteen isn’t really all that young; you’re probably already wiser than you give yourself credit for.”
Our invitation cards are ready for pickup from the printers by the time I get back to San Antonio; they’re the one thing where we chose to go all extravagant and fancy, printing “Captain Frederick Wentworth and Miss Anne Elliot” in bright gold letters for all to see. Or specifically, Fred designed those for the especial benefit of my family units in Palm Beach, using a font with even more curlicues than Father’s handwriting. Anyway, while he’s still in Alabama, I spend my spare time productively by printing out address labels and sticking the seals on the envelopes to send.
By the time Fred gets back, some of the initial RSVP’s have already started coming in. To our surprise, Father and Liz are one of the first few people to confirm their attendance, though I have a niggling suspicion that part of their motivation may simply come from curiosity about what a military wedding would look like. Oh well, they can take care of themselves, when Fred and I have a bigger issue to worry about: how to make it possible for the Harvilles to come in from California.
When the only experiences I have of travelling with toddlers are my faint childhood memories of us dragging a whiny Mary around, coaxing and cajoling and bribing in turn to extract barely enough cooperation to keep us on agenda, it doesn’t surprise me now that Father had refused all my requests to go to Disney World until Mary turned six. And toddlers who have been through trauma, I suppose, would have an even worse time of it, though I wonder if Mary might also count as a child of trauma from all the months that she spent in the NICU as a baby. First things first, I figure that setting them up with accommodation where they can spread out a little more and stock up familiar food for the kids might help, so we buy a new blow-up mattress to supplement our pull-out sofa bed in the living room for the family to crash. Elise agrees to let me share with Gianna at the hotel they’ve booked, to reduce the number of people sharing a single bathroom at our apartment; it doesn’t hurt that it’s also convenient for her since she’ll be styling my hair on the big day. Since Fred’s SUV is more spacious than my Golf, he’ll get my car to drive for the days when the Harvilles are here.
Meanwhile, we get Harville to talk up the wedding to the kids by giving them roles; they’re the first of our friends to become parents, so Michael and Mia will be the only little kids at the wedding. Sophia makes herself in charge of getting a cushion to sew the rings to so Michael can be a ring bearer, and I give Hetty and Lulu instructions on how to make Mia feel at home and teach her some flower girl etiquette.
That reminds me, I’ve forgotten one more thing: to send Francis Harville his own invitation card. He’s actually Benwick’s plus-one, but Fred, Tom Harville, and by extension Elinor and I, are the only people who know that; to everyone else, they’re supposed to be platonic roommates. Neither of us have met him yet, because he’s a few years younger than Tom and went to NYU, but Benwick got to know him when he took up a job in New York, and Tom asked him to look out for his younger brother who was studying there. The rest is history, and now they’re waiting for the time to come when they can legally get married, which is when they plan to come out.
With all the details set, it isn’t long before the big day rolls around, a warm seventy-degree day in November, almost eight years to the day we first met. Elise, Gianna and I are all up at the crack of dawn, even though we’d hung out in our hotel room chatting late into the night. As Elise deftly works on my hair in the morning, I marvel at how she skilfully draws Gianna out and gives her confidence – together, the two of them curl out my hair one tendril at a time and pin it into an elaborate updo, with the last touch being a decorative floral hairpiece which Gianna gleefully declares she picked out personally. We’ve already agreed for William to drive us all to the chapel; after all, he rents a luxury car to drive whenever he travels out of town, so there’s no point in us spending unnecessary money on a limo.
As William’s car rolls into the grounds of Lackland AFB, I start feeling a little nervous, because I don’t have any idea what to expect from Father. Even though he was one of the first people to RSVP to our invitations, he hasn’t said a thing to me after that, so I don’t even know whether he plans to walk me down the aisle. Of course, AJ has already volunteered as a backup to have me covered, but still, my mouth goes dry wondering how Father and Liz will behave. Well, speak of the devil – of all things, as William rolls softly to a halt in front of the chapel, Father is standing there in all of his stately grandeur, wearing a skin-tight tuxedo suit with a jacket covered all over in blue brocade patterned trim that shimmers slightly in the morning sunshine. Liz is standing beside him, wearing a bright gold evening dress and five-inch Louboutins; even though I’d stated unambiguously in the invitations that this would be a simple morning wedding, they’ve dressed as if they were going on the red carpet at the Academy Awards.
After William steps smartly out of the driver’s seat and walks over to open my door, Father approaches and takes my hand to help me out of the car, with a smile on his face that looks unnervingly approving.
“Anne, I never expected it, but you look just as good next to a uniform as a tuxedo,” says Father as he loops my hand into the crook of his elbow.
So that’s the zinger he had, waiting in hiding for me. I stiffen up almost immediately, though I try to keep a placid mask of a smile pasted on my face. How could he! As if Fred is not a person, but just an empty uniform? My jaw tightens, but there’s no time to talk back, not when we are heading right into the wedding processional. Grittily, I remind myself that this is just him, being his usual self. We’re just doing what is normal and expected; a father walking his daughter down the aisle, and I’ve now got to play my part to hold my head up high, willing my face into what I hope is a reasonable approximation of a serene smile.
Soon enough, I’m not the only one having trouble keeping my countenance; as he takes up his seat in the front row pew, Father does a visible double-take at the sight of AJ and Sophia majestically seated in the mirror-image positions of him and Liz, with Fred’s commanding officer next to them.
Enough of Father, I tell myself sharply, and my mood instantly gets better when I turn and face Fred’s side of the church. Michael and Mia Harville, having proudly discharged their duties, are now seated with their mom in the second row, happily beaming and swinging their legs. Their dad and uncle stand side-by-side in the row of groomsmen, with Benwick beside them. Of course, Edward is the best man, and then there is Fred, absolutely radiant in his officer’s mess dress uniform, now adorned with a cluster of miniature medals that weren’t there the last time I saw him in it, back when we were in college.
After the chaplain leads us through the prayers, vows, and exchange of rings, a line of eight men holding their sabers in an arch awaits us as we walk down the chapel steps. The last pair of saber bearers block us for a customary kiss, and then I feel a light tap behind me.
“Welcome to the Air Force, Ma’am,” the last saber bearer says.
Father’s in for another rude shock at the reception, for military protocol states that the groom in uniform has to precede the bride, which ends up in an uncomfortable mix-up as he finds himself standing next to Fred instead of me. Surprisingly, Liz doesn’t seem to care that Mary is a bridesmaid and she isn’t. In fact, she inserts herself into the mother-of-the-bride position without any hesitation at all, and I think she might have actually felt insulted if I’d asked her to be part of my bridal party.
“You didn’t invite Cousin William,” is the only thing she deigns to say to me.
“No, I didn’t.” I don’t feel obliged to give any explanation, so I stop there.
“A cousin is still family, even a third cousin once removed,” she sniffs.
Before long, it’s time for Edward to announce the wedding toasts.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” he begins. “On behalf of Frederick and Anne, I’d like to say a big thank you for coming here, especially those of you who travelled from far and wide, to be a part of their big day.
“I don’t think more than ten percent of the people at this party have seen me before, though most of you probably know me as the guy who first got Fred getting air. That’s right – if he hadn’t snitched my skateboard and gone to town with it at the age of four, he might not have ended up as a Captain in the Air Force. So, I’m letting you know, I take all the credit for getting him to where he is today.
“When we were growing up together, we knew exactly what our roles were. I was the resident nerd in the family, and he was the one who gave me the freedom to be me. He did all the jobs, stocking grocery shelves and flipping burgers, so I could spend my time winning spelling bees. In many ways, even though I was the older one, he was my keeper.
“At first, when Fred told me about his engagement to Anne, I didn’t remember where he met her. And then, he just had to remind me about the one time he called me collect in college, and that rang a bell, loud and clear. Back then, we had no money, and the worst thing we could do to each other was to call collect. So, I knew, if he was going to do that to me, it’d better be something big, man. And it was. Because he was all worked up about the fact that he had fallen for a white girl. Back then, I was naïve; I think I told him, ‘Isn’t that nice?’ or something like that. Don’t diss me, I was a nerd, remember? I was twenty-one and he was nineteen, and I didn’t have no girlfriends yet, so what could I possibly know?
“Well, my little brother grew plenty wise with all the hard knocks he had to go through to set up his life with Anne, and when he introduced me to her proper after they got engaged, she became my instant friend even though we’ve been on opposite sides of the pond. You tell Fred a nerd joke and it’ll bounce off him like a squash ball bouncing off a wall, but Anne never fails to humor me. She knows her EPL teams, her Mozart, and her Shakespeare, and that’s a winning combination.
“Three years ago, I already welcomed Anne to the Wentworth family as our new little sister, and nothing gives me more joy than to make it even more official. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s raise our glasses in a toast to offer our congratulations to Frederick and Anne!”
Elise is the next one to step up, announcing the special item that she’s prepared for our guests.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if Edward’s going to take credit for getting Frederick into the Air Force, then I’m taking credit for getting Anne into MIT, because I was the one who taught her algebra and calculus in ninth grade.
“Before she became Fred’s better half, Anne was my better half. Every time I needed to blow off steam after an awkward first date, she’s been there to talk sense into me. Not only did she let me cut her hair, she also let me cut up her dresses and refashion them into entirely new things – and it’s the ultimate sign of her faith in me that she entrusted me with the dress she’s wearing today. My dad used to tell me that I could be the next Copernicus, and I got sold on that line until I found out he says that to every kid he sees at the museum he works at. But it was Anne who pointed out that even Copernicus has to eat and applied to internships with me, which is how I eventually ended up as a Googler.
“Today, I want to share with you the story of the
Butterfly Lovers
, an old Chinese legend from before 300 AD. That’s right, these were the
Romeo and Juliet
of ancient China, more than a thousand years before Shakespeare came up with the versions we know and love.
“Let’s start with Zhu Yingtai. She was a spunky girl from a well-to-do family, the only girl in a family of boys. Naturally, the one thing she wanted to do was to be like her brothers and get the chance to study. Remember, this was around 300 AD and girls weren’t allowed to go to school, and so she had to disguise herself as a boy.
“Luckily for Anne, it’s now normal for girls to pursue higher education, so there was never any question that Anne would go to college. Still, none of the women in her family have ever done STEM before, and so she needed a lot of spunk to stand up to everyone and tell them that this is her calling.
“While at school, Zhu Yingtai met Liang Shanbo, a scholar who was very smart, even though he didn’t come from a rich family. That’s our Fred – when he first met Anne, his idol was Tupac, whom we all know from
The Rose That Grew From Concrete
. Well, Fred was the math prodigy that grew from concrete. He liked to be the anti-nerd, boasting about how he skated out of Math Olympiad class when he was sixteen, but we all knew he could do Fourier transforms at the speed of lightning. And unlike Liang Shanbo, who spent three years sharing a dorm with Zhu Yingtai without realizing that she was a girl in boy’s clothing, Fred knew Anne was a girl right away, even though she wore her hair short in pixie style all the way through college.
“As you can guess, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai didn’t have a happy ending. But we don’t have a medieval society anymore, so Fred and Anne’s story can have a much more satisfying trajectory. To congratulate and honor them, we would like to present variations on a theme from the
Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto
– please put your hands together for William Deng Fei and Gianna Deng Jia Doherty!”
There was no way for us to set up a piano at this lawn where we’re having an outdoor reception, so William and Gianna rearranged and edited the concerto into a ten-minute version that could be played with two violins. Instead of sticking to melody and accompaniment, they take turns to carry the tune, alternating in point and counterpoint, carrying the voices of the two lovers through their story.
After our guests settle back down from their standing ovation, Fred rises to give his toast.
“Being brave isn’t about never being scared,” he begins. “It’s about carrying on no matter how scared you are. You may think I’m talking about being at the front lines of war, and in part, I guess I am. But even more than that, I’m talking about two little words that had the power to scare the heck out of me for most of my life. And almost four years ago, Anne said those words to me.
“To some of you, the words ‘Grosse Pointe’ don’t mean a thing,” he continues, looking directly at Father. “But there’s a line that separates Detroit and Grosse Pointe, and even though none of us can see it, all of us can feel it. Everyone who doesn’t dare to cross that line, and everyone who chases away the people who do cross it, they’re all perpetuating the existence of it. To be fair to Anne, she never intended to re-introduce that divide between us. But she had to move back there, for very valid reasons which I respect and salute. And yet, I got so scared I thought about turning tail, more than one time that year. I gotta apologize to my commanding officers from UPT for all the times I spaced out and let the team down, because of the distraction from all that stuff going on in my head. But every single time, I talked myself out of it. I told myself I was out of the ‘hood, I was a commissioned officer in the Air Force, and I was on the road to make a respectable living for myself. That surely all those things would mean nobody could chase me away if I chose to cross that line, even though a part of me knew there would always be people who would tell me I didn’t belong.
“Thankfully, Anne was the one who broke down that line for me. She came to my territory first, without forcing me to go into hers. That’s why we’re having this celebration here today. And she also made it safe for me to cross that line when I had to, even though we didn’t end up spending much time in there because there were other places I needed to be.
“Anne doesn’t know I felt that way; I hope I did a good enough job of protecting her from it. That year, the year 2001 when everything went belly up for her and for me and for thousands of other people in America, was the crucible which made our relationship stronger than it ever was. We thought we had each other’s backs, those days we spent at MIT pulling all-nighters together and pacing each other to our BQ’s. Little did we know that those challenges were just child’s play; after we graduated, we ran into a ton of things that were bigger than both of us, and we faced all of them down so today could happen.
“This day is long overdue; I was ready for it four and a half years ago, the minute I got the keys to get out from the ‘hood for good. I wanna thank all of you who are here today for going the distance with us, because you’re the ones who helped us stick it out through all the years and made us into who we are. Before we toast, Anne, would you like to say a few words?”
“Thank you, Fred,” I say, rising to my feet beside him. “After the eloquence of everybody who spoke before, I’m not sure there’s much more I can add. But to play counterpoint to what Fred said about that year, the one that made us instead of breaking us, I did have an inkling of how hard it was for him, even though he made sure to keep telling me he wasn’t going anywhere. In hindsight, I suppose he said that not only to convince me, but also because he needed to convince himself.
“I didn’t make it easy for him, and for that I can only blame the folly of youth. More than once that year, I told him I wanted that time to last forever – that period of limbo which put him into a living hell. It’s not easy, choosing between the two people you love most in the world, especially when you’re facing the prospect of losing one of them forever. Even more so, when you’re dealing with the loss of someone close to you for the first time.
“There shouldn’t be any doubt that Fred is brave, but I want to tell you, he’s braver than even he believes. He gave me the credit for breaking down that invisible red line that separated us, but actually, he was the one who did most of the heavy lifting, by convincing himself to stay in my life in spite of all the very real and rational misgivings he had.
“From the bottom of my heart, I thank you, Fred, for the Herculean efforts you made to stand by me all this time since that fateful year. Without the support I got from you and Sophia, I would have collapsed under the pressure of my responsibilities long ago. I’m looking forward to happier days by your side, and to be your helpmeet and companion through all your future success.”
“And now, let’s raise our glasses to Anne, to women in STEM, to equality, and to everyone who’s here to share our special day. Cheers!” concludes Fred.
Father was definitely not in the loop about the choreography of our toasts; to our astonishment, he springs up from his seat and begins to speak, leaving AJ, who was getting ready to go next, open-mouthed in mid-lunge.
“It is my pleasure today to give my daughter’s hand in marriage,” he begins in a stilted voice, completely devoid of any sincerity of feeling. “A few years ago, I may have hoped for more, but an MIT graduate and Captain of the US Air Force should do nicely for Anne.
“For all these years, I have unstintingly given only the best to my three daughters. Anne has never wanted for anything, when I sent her to Liggett, then Buffalo Seminary, and then MIT. She only needed to ask, and I spared no expense to see to her every need.
“Anne, even though you may now have changed your name, I behoove you to never forget your heritage as an Elliot. Some of the choices you have made were inexplicably plebeian, but seeing you today, I have no doubt that you will do us proud, for you have outdone yourself with an ingenuity that is beyond me.”
Is this sarcasm? Yet, Father makes eye contact with me and nods, with such an air of certainty that it’s clear he actually means it, except I have no idea why.
“You upgraded your help,” he explains. “I never would have thought of it, but that was brilliant. To think, you hired a Chinese chauffeur, and one who is a musician to boot!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see William stiffen visibly, and it takes all of my self-control to keep from hiding my face behind my hands in second-hand embarrassment. But Fred pulls me closer with the arm he’s draped around my shoulders, and I feel him shaking with suppressed mirth.
“You shouldn’t dwell on him too much,” whispers Fred. “Easier said than done, of course.”
“Captain,” Father continues, “if you ever visit Palm Beach, it would be my pleasure to extend our hospitality to you. After all, we can introduce you to echelons of society that you would never have access to. Anne, I wish you the best, and I hope you will continue to honor the Elliot name.”
With one last flourish, Father sits down; his infuriatingly bumbling impromptu act is finally over. I don’t know which part of his speech annoys me the most: his steadfast refusal to refer to Fred by name, his insult to William, or his ridiculous pompousness.
But like Fred said, there’s no need to spend too much time dwelling on it, when AJ sets things back on course by rising for the last toast as we planned.
“I always knew our little Frederick was a smart cookie,” he says, “even in those days when I had to bribe him with fried chicken to get some time alone with my Sophy. We weren’t much more than kids ourselves when we started playing house, taking on the roles of mom and dad to these two fine young men who are here today as the groom and the best man.
“Frederick really looked up to me ever since he was a little kid, and it put a lot of pressure on me. Everything I did, he wanted to do too, and he joined Junior ROTC just so he could put on a uniform and salute me the day I became an officer.
“When Frederick became an officer too, he mailed me a silver dollar. He told me he had another one to give to the first enlisted man to salute him on base, but he wanted me to have his first silver dollar because I had been the enlisted man who made the biggest difference to his life.
“You know what? That made my day; I couldn’t be happier except on the day I married my Sophy. Growing up without a dad ain’t easy, and I knew Sophy was the one for me when I saw how she looked out for those little brothers of hers, for even when their mama was alive, Sophy was their de facto mom. I felt like I needed to show them a path to make it on their own, an honest career that could give them a better life.
“Normally, I never keep any secrets from Sophy, and I swear this is the only one. Sophy, I got one confession to make: Frederick told me about his proposal to Anne before he told you. It was just before he went out for UPT, and he swore me to secrecy for a year, telling me he didn’t want anyone else to know unless it still worked out after his UPT was done. But, he said, he wanted me to know, because if I hadn’t shown him what it meant to take responsibility for his girl, he would never have thought of popping the question.
“Well, I must say, Frederick has turned out very well, and it is a relief at last that now he’s somebody else’s responsibility.” AJ winks at Fred, to show he means this in jest. “Anne, I have every faith in you to take good care of him. Sophy and I wish both of you a long life of happiness and health, and whenever you need anything, you know who to call.”
With the conclusion of the toasts, we proceed to cut the wedding cake. This, to me, is the coolest part of the entire celebration, because I get to hold a sword: tradition has it that we cut the cake with a saber, and Father and Liz rush in to take close-ups with their phone cameras, blocking the view of the rest of our guests.
Originally, we’d chosen to have a daytime reception for simplicity and cost-effectiveness, but the timing comes in handy to give us a welcome respite from further embarrassment on Father’s part. The sun is still high in the sky when we make our way to our getaway car, which is my Golf with a “Just Married” sign drawn on chalkboard by Harriet and Emma, featuring a manga-style cartoon of a uniformed soldier carrying a princess with a crown. We don’t have far to go, for we’ll be spending one more night in our apartment before flying to California with the Harvilles, leaving them in LA and embarking on our honeymoon road trip along Highway 1.
“Elise, do you think William might welcome some reassurance that he’s original too?” I remind her, just before we leave. “They were so inventive with the way they rearranged that music piece – did you notice they were playing a dialogue between the two lovers in the story?”
“Actually, it didn’t occur to me until you mentioned it,” says Elise, “but yes, I will.”
Posted on 2022-05-10
Part III – Chapter 9 (Anne)
March 2005, Maricopa County, Arizona
Before even a year was up, we had to strike camp; Fred got offered a position at Luke AFB, and so we packed up everything in that first little home to move here. While I feel a little sad saying goodbye to the apartment so soon after we’d taken such pains to set everything up, everything about this move is good news: he’s now an instructor pilot which means he won’t be away so much, and we applied for military family housing so they give us a two-bedroom ranch-style community housing unit with its own carport, twice the size of our previous apartment, and all for free.
We learn that not all IKEA furniture necessarily moves well; we can’t dismantle the bulkier units to get them through the doorway and into the elevator, so some of our furniture has to be written off entirely, and the rest of the fiberboard pieces that we do manage to bring along get scuffed enough that we have to do touch-up work with glue, paint and duct tape. Still, the military pays for movers to help us with most of the heavy lifting, so that takes a lot of stress off our plate, and we figure we can slowly furnish our new pad over time.
Not long after we settle into our new home, I get an urgent text from Elise in all caps, which reads, “CALL ME ASAP.”
“What’s the matter?” I ask. “I hope everyone in your family – and William’s – are OK.”
“Everyone’s alive, thank goodness,” Elise confirms in a shaky voice. “For the moment, at least. But I can’t guarantee that there won’t be casualties when World War III has broken out in my family. Lanie’s pregnant.”
“Lanie? At seventeen?” I used to be well acquainted with Elise’s sisters during the years when I drove her to and from campus at every college break, staying over at her parents’ home whenever I picked her up or dropped her off. But that was years ago; the last time I saw Lanie, she was a boisterous twelve-year-old just out of sixth grade. That summer, she was obsessed with makeup, push-up bras and boys, but I never thought much of it since a fair number of the girls in my class were that way too when I was that age.
“Yep.” Elise’s voice falls flat. “She’s still got a year of high school left. Daddy and Mom are at their wits’ end, and they want me to go back to talk to her, because whatever they say isn’t getting through – she wants to keep the baby, and they don’t believe she should, so they want me to come in and mediate. And I don’t feel like I can handle this without reinforcements, so, Anne, will you please come with me? She always used to listen to you so much better than to me, or Jenna.”
“If you think I’d be useful instead of intruding, then of course,” I say. “How about William? Did you tell him about it?”
“I did, and he was very sympathetic to me when I told the story, but after that he got into a serious funk and hasn’t left his laptop in days. I practically have to pry him away from the computer physically to make him eat his meals. If only I knew what was going on in his mind, but I wonder if he’ll be scared off me because of the stigma.”
I wish I could tell her, “Of course not,” and know I was telling the truth, but I can’t. From everything Elise has shared with me about William and his upbringing, as well as what I’ve seen of William first-hand, I know he hasn’t assimilated into hook-up culture at all, and in fact it would be anathema to him for his own sister to participate in it. Even though I’d want to think he’s mature enough – and deeply enough in love with Elise – to support her through this and show some grace to Lanie, the fact is, I really have no idea.
Elise could do with some moral support on the journey, I figure, so I fly into Boston and take the wheel for the three-hour drive to Albany County. She doesn’t cry, but she spends most of the ride nervously winding her hair around her index finger or chewing her nails.
“She didn’t tell us until her bump started to show,” she says. “So, I’m guessing, she’s probably around twenty, twenty-one weeks along by now. Which leaves a very narrow time window for an abortion if she were to choose one, though that’s what I meant about not having any casualties yet, because I hope we can find some other option that doesn’t involve taking a life.”
“Is that what your parents are trying to do?” I ask. “To talk her into getting an abortion?”
“No, not exactly. They’ve laid it out as one of the options, though. The main thing is, we all know there’s no way she can raise a kid at her age, especially on her own, without it being Daddy and Mom doing practically all the work for her. And they don’t want to encourage her irresponsibility by letting her have her cake and eat it without any consequences.”
The Barnett house, a generous McMansion in a suburb bordering the City of Albany, is just as I remember it from my last sleepover there with the five sisters, curled up in their family room watching rom-coms and feasting on popcorn till the wee hours of the night. All the furniture is a tad faded, scratched and worn, having seen five girls from babyhood to adulthood. Yet, unlike Father’s house where everything seemed to be tacitly labelled “Do Not Touch”, in Elise’s home every single piece of décor, no matter how lacking in aesthetic appeal, exists solely for the inhabitants’ comfort.
Jenna, Elise’s elder sister, is the one who greets us at the door, grabbing Elise in an affectionate hug.
“Any new developments?” asks Elise, a glimmer of hope in her eyes.
“Not yet,” replies Jenna. “Anne, welcome, it’s been so long since we last saw you; I couldn’t thank you enough for accompanying Elise here at such short notice. Did she fill you in?”
“Thanks, Jenna. And yes, she told me everything. How are your parents holding up?” I ask.
“They’re not doing so great,” Jenna admits. “Mom had a panic attack when she heard, and she hasn’t come out of her room ever since. That’s why I had to come back to take care of her. And Daddy won’t talk to her because he says none of this would’ve happened if she’d been a better influence on Lanie. He’s been spending day and night in his study, which means I’ve been delivering trays to two different rooms three times a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And in the meantime, Kaitlyn’s been acting as if nothing ever happened. She flounces in and out all the time, hanging out with her friends and partying when she isn’t at class, and won’t speak two words to either Daddy or Mom.”
Elise dutifully goes straight upstairs to check on her mom, leaving Jenna and me alone in the large, empty front room.
“I still hope everything’s going to turn out fine,” says Jenna. “After all, Lanie’s been seeing the same boyfriend for six months now, and you know when a couple stays together for that long in high school, it’s practically like saying they want to grow old with each other. I know they’re still very young, but maybe with a little support from our parents and his, George and Lanie might have a chance at making it.”
“You mean, you’re suggesting they get married?” I ask. “How old is he?”
“He’s a senior, so he’ll be graduating this spring. I have no idea whether he plans to go to college or not, but it’s not that long before he could get a job and help Lanie and the baby out financially. I’d like to think that it’s what he’d want to do, if he had a decent conscience.”
Unlike ruthlessly pragmatic Elise, Jenna has always wanted to think the best of everyone; even at twenty-eight, she’s more idealistic than I was at eighteen. I’ve been to college before, and I know at least ninety percent of college boys (actually, it’s probably more like ninety-nine percent, but I’d rather err on the side of generosity) aren’t thinking beyond their next keg when they’re not in class or studying for exams. Is there a chance he’ll agree to marry her? Maybe. But do I think they have a shot at creating and maintaining a stable family environment for their child at that age? I certainly won’t bet any of my money on it, though I won’t discount the possibility that it might be a moonshot.
“Mom asked me to make her marry George,” says Elise, emerging from the foot of the stairs. “As if anyone could just wave a magic wand and declare them man and wife, just like that! Besides, what do you think the chances are that Lanie would stay married for even a year, at seventeen?”
“Do you think your dad will let us talk to him?” I suggest. “Surely there might be some other way to help Lanie raise her child on her own, even if they choose not to get married.”
“Daddy was going to be my next stop anyway, so why don’t you come with me to say hi to him? He’ll be so glad to see you, he’s always been asking about you all these years.”
We knock gently on the study door and then, without waiting for a reply, Elise opens it a crack and sticks her head into the gap, calling, “Daddy?”
“Come in,” Mr. Barnett says in a weary voice. “Anne, is that you? Elise’s sister from a different mister?”
“Yep, I’m here,” I say. “I hope you don’t mind me butting in at this time, it must be a tough time for all of you, but Elise asked me to come.”
“Not at all,” he says. “After all, maybe you might be able to get it into Lanie’s head that she’s in no way capable of being anyone’s mom. She always used to like talking to you when she was little.”
“Daddy, maybe Lanie does have a point after all,” says Elise. “I don’t fault her for not choosing abortion – that’s cruel – and surely it isn’t wrong for her to want to stay involved in her child’s life?”
“Lanie’s maternal instincts are not going to override the constraints of my pocketbook,” declares Mr. Barnett. “After footing the bill for three college tuitions – four if pigs can fly and Lanie gets accepted into a four-year program – and Marilyn’s Master’s degree, it’ll be a miracle if Francesca and I don’t come around begging you girls for alms in our retirement. After having done this parenting gig five times, do you really think I have the energy for another go-around in my dotage?”
We exchange looks, and I bet Elise and I are thinking the same thing: that there ought to be a way to encourage Lanie to take responsibility while helping her finish her education, so she can raise her child independently in several years’ time. Except, given her reputation for being nothing other than fun-loving and boy-crazy thus far, none of us are willing to take the chance on that.
“I guess I could help her,” Elise finally says. “I’ll bring her to live with me in Cambridge, that’ll give her free housing, and she could go to community college while I keep an eye on her and foot the bill for day care. That is, if George doesn’t marry her. Which, honestly, I doubt he will.”
“George? Forget about him, he’s a gone case,” says Mr. Barnett derisively. “Kaitlyn told me the other day that they were in an open relationship. If that isn’t code-speak for random promiscuity, I don’t know what it is. And to think she kept that information to herself for so long before deigning to share it with us! Well, with such disrespectful daughters, what am I to do? Ground them both for ten years?”
“Well,” I take a deep breath, “I guess it’s too much to hope for the baby daddy to take responsibility. But we could try talking to Lanie while we’re here and see if we can get her to fully understand and appreciate what it takes to be a mom before she decides to sign up for it.”
Kaitlyn slouches in through the front door, her backpack slung on one shoulder, just as we exit Mr. Barnett’s study. “Hey, Anne,” she says. “I haven’t seen you for the longest time. What are you doing here?” Belatedly noticing her sister, she quickly tacks on, “Oh, Elise, you came back too?”
“Yes, we did,” says Elise caustically. “We couldn’t take our eyes off the reality show. What’s the deal anyway, about Lanie and George having an open relationship?”
“What’s wrong?” counters Kaitlyn defiantly. “It’s a Millennial thing. And if I had one, I’d be smarter about it than Lanie is; I know how to use birth control at least.”
“Do you know who else Lanie went out with, besides George?” asks Jenna from the couch. “Maybe if she’s fallen in love with someone else, there’s a chance that boy might still stand by her.”
“Nope, no clue. Now that I’m in college, I’m out of the scene. Anyways, I have a date tonight so I gotta change now, bye!” With a toss of her head, Kaitlyn escapes up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.
Elise and I head up the stairs in her wake, getting to the top just in time to hear Kaitlyn’s door slam shut.
“That’s Lanie’s room,” says Elise, pointing to another door at the opposite side of the house from Kaitlyn’s. “You probably remember it used to be Jenna’s and mine, but she wasted no time snagging the biggest room once we both moved out for good after college.”
We find Lanie reclining on the queen size bed that Elise and Jenna used to share, surrounded by stuffed animals and issues of
Seventeen
magazine. She’s flipping idly through one of them, moving her shoulders subtly to the rhythm of the music in her earphones, mumbling the refrain “ain’t no Hollaback girl” at intermittent intervals.
Elise marches up to the bed and waves a hand in front of Lanie’s face, forcing her to look up and take off her earphones.
“Oh, hey! You guys came just in time to see this,” she says, pulling up her T-shirt to show off her bump. “Did you know, I’m going to be a mom?”
“Duh,” says Elise. “What do you think we came for? Did you think I’d stand by and let you give Daddy a heart attack?”
“Daddy’s just being cruel,” whines Lanie. “A good father wouldn’t encourage his daughter to commit murder. Or to abandon her poor little baby.”
“Who’s the father?” I ask. “And does he know about the baby?”
“I don’t know,” admits Lanie. “George – that’s my boyfriend, or maybe I should say he was my boyfriend – used to say I was his one and only. That’s why I agreed to sleep with him. And then one day, he sprang it on me that he wanted an open relationship. He said polyamory is the new trend, so as long as I knew I was number one in his heart, we should both have the freedom to have some variety in our lives. I got so mad, I picked up John Thorpe right away because he’s the most jacked football player on the team and I wanted George to know I could do better than him. By the time my pregnancy test came back positive, it could’ve been either of them. I won’t know unless I convinced them both to do a DNA test, and I’m not sure I really want to know; I can do just fine being a mom on my own.”
“OK,” I continue. “Let’s fast-forward to this fall, you have your baby, and you’ll be starting your senior year at high school. Your baby is going to need milk every couple hours or so, and you’ll be changing their diaper just about as often. How are you going to do all of that and go to class at the same time?”
“Oh, I’ll leave her at home, and Mom can do it?” says Lanie hopefully. “Actually, I don’t know if it’ll be a girl or a boy, but I hope it’s a girl. That way, I can have fun dressing her up.”
“Oh yeah, like real,” remarks Elise. “Have you seen Mom at all since her panic attack?”
“She’ll come around,” says Lanie confidently. “I’m her favorite, remember?”
“Lanie,” I say, sitting on the edge of the bed and meeting her at eye level, “it’s a good thought to not want to destroy life, and it’s also a good thing to want to be a part of your child’s life. But you need to think about the things you realistically can and can’t do on your own, because your dad is going to retire someday, sooner rather than later, and at that time, there won’t be an endless source of housing or money for you and the baby to tap into. What if your parents decided to downsize to a condo at that point, and didn’t have space for you to live with them?”
“Then what do you want me to do? Give my baby up for adoption? You’re just as heartless as Daddy,” says Lanie spitefully.
“Well, what do you expect?” snaps Elise. “How much do you think you’ll earn if you got a job to support your child, when you’re not even out of high school? And if you’re not going to get a job, it isn’t fair to expect Daddy to go out of pocket for milk, diapers, and doctor’s appointments when he’s got your college tuition to pay for. If you’re even thinking of going to college, that is.”
“I never -” Lanie stops short. “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about college, actually. I guess, maybe I could just not go to college, and ask Daddy to give me my college fund for the baby?”
“Isn’t that worse?” snorts Elise, and I place one hand on her shoulder, telling her to calm down.
“Look, Lanie,” I say. “Let’s get online, and we can take a look at all the things you’re going to need for the baby. And then, we’ll do the math to see how much you need to earn in order to take proper care of your child. That way, you’ll know what you need to do if you want to be a mom.”
I get Jenna to join me in compiling the baby-shopping list with Lanie, because I’m running out of patience almost as quickly as Elise. Lanie yawns when we walk her through the prices of diapers and baby formula and how much she can save by buying house brands, but when we get to talking about the cost of children’s clothing, she gets side-tracked into gushing over cute baby outfits and shoes. Jenna is more tolerant of her distractions than I am, so I let her entertain Lanie on her flights of fancy and slowly bring her back to task, while I pace the room in between the serious stuff. Elise hangs around observing the proceedings while deliberately keeping a strict distance, not bothering to hide the exasperated look on her face.
“I can’t imagine why I volunteered to help Lanie raise her child,” she remarks when I pass her on one of my laps of the room. “This is hopeless.”
“Well, you could still back out and insist she gives the baby up for adoption,” I point out. “But I’m sure you had your reasons for offering.”
“Of course,” she replies. “After all the pain Gianna went through because she was given up for adoption at birth, how could I leave my own niece or nephew to the same fate?”
None of us gets a good night’s sleep that day; Jenna, Elise and I are crammed into Marilyn’s bedroom, since that’s the only unoccupied one with her at grad school, and we all toss, turn and fret with our own frustrations.
“I wish I’d thought of applying for a student loan when I went to college,” says Jenna wistfully. “Even though I’m not smart enough to get a scholarship like Elise, I would’ve done something if I knew Daddy would need help someday.”
“Well, it’s not like you single-handedly dug Daddy into a financial hole or anything,” points out Elise. “You went to SUNY on in-state tuition and lived at home. If we want to blame anybody, we might as well pin the lion’s share of the blame on Marilyn, since I have absolutely no idea what she’s going to do with a Master’s degree in anthropology, unless she spends even more years in school getting her PhD.”
“If we’re going to worry about anything, we might as well worry about what’s going to happen, rather than what’s happened already,” I say. “Which means, we’re probably better off strategizing about how to set boundaries for Lanie to be self-sustaining in the long run, so that even if you decide to chip in and help her out for the first few years, she won’t take this as carte blanche to do whatever she wants and saddle you with all the responsibilities.”
Elise flips over from her side to her back with a big sigh, and I bury my face in my pillow.
“Good night,” says Jenna. “Things will be better in the morning, you’ll see.”
It turns out that things sometimes do play out according to Jenna’s worldview after all, unlikely as it might seem. The next morning, we wake up to find Mr. and Mrs. Barnett having breakfast together at the eat-in kitchen, apparently on talking terms again. In quick succession, Kaitlyn and Lanie pop in to pick up a peanut butter sandwich and a banana each, then head off to their respective campuses with nary a word of complaint.
“Elise, my dear girl,” says Mrs. Barnett, “are you sure you’ll be happy bringing up Lanie’s child? That rich Chinese boyfriend of yours probably isn’t going to want to have anything to do with you after this, so you ought to know what you’re giving up.”
“Mrs. Barnett, in all due respect,” I say, “I think you might be underestimating William. Assuming he has a conscience and a decent set of principles, why would he ditch Elise after all this?”
“Anne, dear, how many men do you think are going to be willing to buy one and get one free?” counters Mrs. Barnett. “And babies are far from free, I know that after having five of them.”
“I could help out,” suggests Jenna. “Elise, I don’t suppose you’ll need it since you already earn twice as much as I do, but if it helps give William more assurance that he doesn’t have to bear any of the burden, I’d be happy to chip in.”
“I hate to burst your bubble, my darling girls, but whatever you decide to do, it’s all going to naught if Lanie decides she can pop out ten different babies from ten different men because you’ll pick up all the slack,” says Mr. Barnett. “I hope you managed to impress upon her yesterday that this is the one and only baby she’ll be having in the next twenty years.”
“Yeah, I think we managed to get it into Lanie’s head that babies eat and poop all the time,” says Elise. “If she still wants another one after that, she’s more than welcome to deal with all the diaper blowouts on her own.”
In the afternoon, I volunteer to take Lanie to IHOP one-on-one for a pep talk over waffles and chicken about what it’s like to enter a serious relationship in our teens, since I’m the only one of us with that experience. Mr. Barnett has gone back to work, and I let Mrs. Barnett and Jenna know I’ll be staying out with Lanie till dinnertime, so Elise can call William and catch him up.
“Lanie, do you know where this is?” I ask her, showing her a pocket-size photograph of my fourteen-year-old self with my cabin mates in our canoe on Raquette Lake.
“Wow, that’s such a beautiful place!” Lanie squeals. “Is that you?”
“Yep, that’s me, the summer before I started high school and met Elise. And yes, it is a beautiful place; for many years I called it my heaven on earth. It’s up in the Adirondacks, not that far from here. It’s always been my dream to go back there again, but I never did.”
“Why not? You could always drive up there, can’t you? It’s not like you have anybody telling you what to do all the time, like me.”
“You’re right,” I say carefully, “that technically I have the freedom to do whatever I want. But with every freedom, there comes a lot of responsibility. All through high school, I used to dream about the summers I’d spend going back to Raquette Lake, working as a counsellor at my old camp after I got old enough to qualify. Yet when the time came, I had to give it all up, and even though I miss being there so much I’ve carried this photo in my wallet for more than ten years, I don’t regret making that choice at all.”
“Why did you have to give it up? Did your dad stop you from going there?”
“No, not at all. Father didn’t like me taking summer jobs, but he probably would’ve preferred this to the alternative. I gave up that dream because I fell in love; as you know, Frederick and I have been an item since the end of freshman year. At that time, I didn’t know if we’d end up getting married, or how long we might last in the end, but I did know Father wasn’t going to give us any money if we ended up having a baby before we were ready to support ourselves. And so, I made the choice to procure my own independence. I spent that summer doing summer school so I could squeeze the work of two majors into four years, and then I went around getting internships to land a high-paying job with a big company after graduation. Did I miss out on a lot of fun when I was younger? Maybe. But do I think it’s worth it? Well, yes, every single day, even though the Air Force now gets to decide which city I call home.”
“You’re lucky, though,” says Lanie. “Not everyone gets Prince Charming for their first boyfriend; I know that very well, even though everybody thinks I’m stupid. But just because I have to kiss many frogs before getting a prince – if I can get one at all – that isn’t going to stop me kissing frogs. I might only be in high school, but I’m a real person with real needs.”
“I agree, high school is plenty old enough to fall in love, and not everybody who falls in love will stay that way,” I say. “And some of us have to grow up faster than others; the world isn’t fair, and sadly, there is some level of randomness to the responsibilities that get thrust upon us, and the age at which that happens. Want to see another photo?”
I whip out my phone, and scroll to a picture from my wedding day, a candid shot taken during the family dances at our reception, with Fred and me in the background, and AJ twirling Sophia in the foreground, her skirts swirling around her in a blur of motion, though the incandescent smiles on both their faces are in perfect focus.
“Lanie, how old do you think they are?” I ask.
“Hmm…” she frowns a little, grabbing my phone and scrutinizing the picture. “They don’t seem to be a day over thirty, but I can’t really tell. Um, I think they’re closer to your age, rather than Mom and Daddy’s?”
“You’re pretty close,” I say with a smile. “AJ is thirty-six this year, and Sophia is thirty-four. They’re Fred’s sister and brother-in-law. And yet, they were the ones taking the parents of the groom’s roles when we got married. He started dating her when she was sixteen, a year younger than you are, and they raised two teenage boys – Fred, and his brother Edward – all on their own while he went to college. Life wasn’t easy for them – they lived in a trailer, and Sophia had to drop out of college and work, but they didn’t just get by, they thrived. They’re living proof that life doesn’t have to always be fun and games for it to be happy.”
“Wow,” says Lanie. “Two teenage boys, that’s tough. Much tougher than dealing with just one baby.”
“Is that what you’ve decided then? To spend the next few years focusing on this one baby?”
“If I had a choice,” Lanie shrugs. “It’s not like I do.”
“You do have a choice,” I point out. “You have three choices, in fact. The first one, which is probably the one that appeals to you the least, is to have an abortion. Nobody’s going to force you to do that, and we’ll all respect you if you stand up and say you don’t want to snuff out a life before it’s even been lived. The second one is to put your baby up for adoption through an agency, and let strangers raise your child while you finish your education and find your way in the world. But if you do that, you might never see your child again; it’ll be up to the adoptive parents to decide how much contact you can have with your child, which is fair since they’ll be the ones putting in all the time and all the cost, so they deserve to come first in the child’s life.
“And then there is a third choice, which is to take advantage of any support your sisters might extend to you to help you get settled and raise the baby yourself. It won’t be a bottomless pit, because your mom and dad will need their support after retirement, and Jenna and Elise need to start families of their own too. But they both know you won’t be able to stand alone with the baby until you have at least a two-year degree, if not a four-year one, and they’re willing to help out with some of the costs while you study and forge a career of your own.”
“I don’t even know if I want to go to college,” says Lanie. “School is boring.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” I reassure her. “Middle school and high school are probably the worst, because you’re still being forced to do a bunch of subjects you don’t like, but when you start thinking about the things you want to do for a living, you can pick a hands-on job if you think you’ll be bored sitting at a desk all the time. Look at Fred, he knows himself and he’d be absolutely bored with desk-bound work, so he chose to become a pilot. You like fashion – how about studying fashion merchandising in college and getting a job in a boutique?”
“Fashion? You really think I can do that?” Lanie finally perks up.
“Why not? If there’s one thing you and Jenna and Elise all have in common, it’s that each of you know exactly what your sense of style is. When you were a tween, you always seemed to know what to wear to make all the girls in your class want to dress like you, so why wouldn’t you be able to pick out the right clothes to put in a shop?”
By the time I bring Lanie back, it’s past dinnertime. Elise and Jenna join Lanie in her room for the night to tell her about what they’re willing to do for her and the child, leaving me on my own in Marilyn’s room. That means I don’t get a chance to catch up with Elise about William’s reaction, until the drive back to Boston the following morning.
“We’re engaged,” says Elise flatly. “He said he’s going to marry me.”
“Well, isn’t that what you wanted all along? That’s a thing which warrants great congratulations, and I couldn’t be happier for you, but why don’t you sound happy?”
“Is it a happy thing? Well, I guess it’s supposed to be. I know, I’ve been thinking I’d be in seventh heaven when he proposes to me, but as it turns out, he didn’t even propose. He just said, ‘We’re getting married, and we’re going to legally adopt the baby.’ And that was that. He didn’t even
ask
me to marry him, he
told
me he was marrying me.”
“And, if he’d asked you instead of telling you, you’d actually say no? Isn’t that a technicality?”
“Well…” Elise fiddles nervously with a loose lock of hair. “If he proposed, of course I’d say yes. That’s a foregone conclusion. But if he had made a proper proposal, with a candlelight dinner and a ring and all of that, I’d know he’d thought about it, and he really wanted to marry me. What if all of this is out of kindness, and a sense of obligation? It’s kind of, like, I was hare-brained enough to jump up and say I’ll raise this baby, and now he feels as if he needs to protect me from the stigma, or worse, he thinks I won’t be able to do this on my own, without financial aid from him.”
I shake my head and let out a fondly exasperated sigh.
“If every thirty-year-old man extended financial aid, as you put it, to random women choosing to raise children on their own, there wouldn’t be so many single-parent families in this world,” I point out. “Trust me, if he’s willing to take on this level of responsibility, it’s probably more proof that he really wants to marry you, rather than less.”
By the time I touch down at Phoenix Sky Harbour, there’s already a happy text from Elise in my phone.
“Guess what?? He bought two tickets to Beijing!! Chat you when we’re back.”
Song Reference:
Gwen Stefani's
Hollaback Girl
is what Lanie is singing along to when Elise and Anne barge into her room.
Posted on 2022-05-11
Thankfully, I am still in between jobs after the move to Phoenix, because the summer of 2005 ends up becoming the summer of weddings. Upon their return from Beijing at the end of April, Elise and William waste no time dropping in on us over a weekend, so they can deliver their wedding invitation in person.
William wants to talk to Frederick one-on-one, so we drop them off at a sports bar in downtown Phoenix for the afternoon.
“Be good, OK?” I say in jest, smacking a playful kiss on Frederick. “Don’t overdo it on the beer.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he says with a smile, as William stares at us in semi-horror; apparently his years of living in the US haven’t inured him to public displays of affection. Giggling, Elise elbows him gently and tells him to knock it off.
“We have reservations for dinner tonight,” William finally says, after he recovers his countenance. “So don’t worry about us, I’ll make sure we save some capacity for the wine.”
With the boys dispatched to their own devices, Elise and I hang out in her hotel room, looking through the photos from her trip. During the days when Father used to bring us on overseas vacations, China was never on his list, because he used to call it “a backward country”. Well, it’s hardly the first time Father was wrong, so I shouldn’t be surprised when Beijing turns out to be fascinating and magnificent beyond my imagination.
“This is the Forbidden City, and Tiananmen Square,” says Elise, pointing to a giant structure with a tiered roof. “And here’s the stadium they’re building for the Olympics in 2008. And then, this is the Summer Palace,” this last photo being clearly taken from a boat, showing a majestic red pagoda sitting on a hillside, overlooking a glassy lake.
“I expected his parents to be arrogant and stand-offish, but they were actually very nice,” she continues. “They live in a traditional compound with a courtyard, but they renovated everything with modern materials, and William said it’s one of the few that haven’t been split up into multi-family units. Because they’re so traditional, I expected them to frown on him marrying a white girl, but they were surprisingly cool about it. In fact, they said, they’re really happy that he reconnected with his sister, and thanked me for showing friendship to Gianna.”
“That’s great,” I say. “Sounds like, he was already thinking about marriage for longer than you initially believed, if he planned to introduce you to his parents.”
“Yep, more to come,” says Elise. “First things first, his aunt. That’s the one who kept telling all his extended family he went to the US for high school because he wouldn’t be able to make it in the Chinese education system. Well, guess what, that was half a lifetime ago, and she’s still rubbing it in that he didn’t stay in China. If that wasn’t enough, she takes it as a personal offence that he isn’t marrying a Chinese girl, and so when his parents invited the entire extended family out for Peking duck, she took a piece of duck’s tongue with her own chopsticks – which is a big no-no when there are serving chopsticks to make sure we don’t spread each other’s germs when sharing food – and put it onto my plate, daring me to eat it. Of course, William took it away and ate it himself. My hero.”
“Aww, that’s really sweet and gallant of him,” I remark. “Not that I expected anything else, of course.”
“Well, yeah. But I can hold my own against her, too. You know how my courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me? Well, on the way back to the Deng family home from the restaurant, I stopped the chauffeur at the roadside, and bought two sticks of deep-fried locusts from a street stall. One was for me, and I made sure I showed her just how yummy I thought it was, and the other one, of course, was especially for her.”
“Want to know what’s my favorite part of Beijing?” she continues.
“Sure, what? I guess, probably some outdoor garden?”
“Well, if I hadn’t seen this place, you might be correct, but no, not quite. We went to the Wang Fu Jing bookstore, and William said if I hadn’t been there, he could spend a whole day browsing around. It takes up an entire building – five floors – and I was amazed at the variety of English books they have. This time, he picked up a selection of graphic novels for Gianna to read, since she’s still learning Chinese but is too old for children’s books.”
“And then, before I deliver the coup de grace, you might want to open this,” she says, handing me a red envelope.
It’s an invitation card, bright red with gold printing, a Chinese character on the front with a dragon on one side and a phoenix on the other. When I open it, there’s an insert in translucent white paper, printed with red ink.
“Because Lanie is due in August, we had to DIY the invites to get them out in time,” explains Elise. “We bought the cards ready-made from Chinatown and printed the insides ourselves, which was why we used red ink instead of gold.”
The insert, which has a cute little Precious Moments cartoon of a bride and groom on top, reads:
Mr. Deng Fan and Mrs. Deng Ailing
and
Mr. Tobias Barnett and Mrs. Francesca Barnett
request the honour of your presence
at the wedding of their children
William Deng Fei
and
Elise Barnett
etc.
Within the insert, Elise has also tucked in a photo, a close-up shot of them gazing at each other in joyful adoration, the winding path atop the Great Wall of China faintly visible against the backdrop of blue sky and grassy landscape looming beyond the stone parapet they’re leaning on.
“That’s where he proposed to me,” she explains, “he said he wanted to do it at the Great Wall because that would make it meaningful for both of us. I love a vantage point with a scenic view, as you know, and to him, the Great Wall is the work of several centuries, representing five thousand years of Chinese history.”
“Wow… in all honesty, that could only be called superlative,” I say reverently, blown away by it all. “Don’t you feel like all your dreams came true?”
“Absolutely,” replies Elise. “It turned out, he had it all planned long ago for the summer, but before he could surprise me with the tickets, he had to bring the reservations forward because of all of this. That was one of the things he was busy with when he was at his laptop all day.”
“And I suppose, the other things would have to do with Lanie and the baby?” I speculate. “Changing the subject, did he ever explain to you why he wants to legally adopt with you?”
“Yes,” says Elise, “all this time, his mind was going in the same direction as mine was, except he wanted to do his research first since he was raised as an only child and knew absolutely nothing about babies. That’s how he came to the idea that we should adopt our niece – did I mention, Lanie’s having a girl - because we get family benefits at work, whereas Lanie won’t have anything since she’s still in school. That way, we can put her on our health insurance, because otherwise, it'll either mean that Lanie has to get Medicaid, or Daddy has to get her onto his plan. And maybe it’s good for Lanie to give up legal parental rights, at least at this point, because it’ll keep her mindful that she’s only bearing a fraction of the responsibility it takes to raise a child. She’ll still have the opportunity to build a relationship with her daughter, and we intend to let our niece choose who she wants to be with when she’s older. I just wish he hadn’t gotten ahead of himself and blurted it all out to me in his excitement, because I’d gladly agree on the spot if he’d held it in long enough to sit down together and have a civilized conversation instead.”
“And,” continues Elise, “here’s when all of my dreams really came true. William finally complimented my code at last! I told him he must be super relieved we’re getting married, since that means he’ll never have to look at my code again, and you know what he said? He said, all this while he’s still been going through all the code, and he thinks my code is the most elegant of all,
after
I’ve done enough revisions to iron out all the kinks.”
William is a cultural chameleon; this time, he’s made reservations for us at Binkley’s, and I gasp audibly when I see the prices. I used to think Father was extravagant, but he’s got nothing on this; it’s $240 per person just for food, and with the additions of wine and caviar, we will have gone through $500 per head for a three-hour, twenty-course meal.
“You shouldn’t have,” I tell William. “It’s too generous of you.”
“Come on Anne, we ought to be gracious since they want to make this a special occasion. And besides, you could take pictures,” suggests Fred with an evil grin, “and tag them to your sister on Facebook.”
“Not at all,” replies William coolly. “I like to try new restaurants in every city I visit, and it’s a pleasure to have you all with me.”
June becomes my nomadic Month of Weddings; first, I head back to Detroit for a couple weeks to help Mary and Charles prepare for theirs, where I serve as the matron-of-honour, and then I have a couple of stops to make in preparation for Elise’s. Fred, of course, swoops in to join me for both of the occasions, but I stay on in Detroit and the Massachusetts area throughout the entire time in between to avoid all the extra hours of flying, since there’s plenty of people I can catch up with.
Ironically, Elise doesn’t get to style her own gown, because William is particular about labels, and the sheer number of costume changes required mean that all her dresses need to be bought off the rack, since their preparation timeframe allows only for alterations, not for tailoring.
On the morning of the wedding, all the bridesmaids gather at Elise’s apartment in Cambridge at 4 AM. Her tiny space is bursting at the seams with the entourage: seven bridesmaids comprising her four sisters and three college flatmates including me; her parents and two sets of aunts and uncles; a professional stylist for her makeup and hair; and a professional photo and video crew as well. Fred is also here with us, because although William didn’t invite him to be a groomsman, they’ve graciously allowed him to join us as a spectator to the morning ceremony as a courtesy to me.
“The reason why William insisted all his groomsmen must be Chinese,” Elise had explained, “is because anyone else might find the door games disrespectful. He wouldn’t want to put you in the position of ordering Frederick to do push-ups, for example.”
Our task, simply put, is to put William and his groomsmen through their paces before they can enter the apartment and pick up Elise, with each of us setting one challenge for them.
Jenna and I go first, serving them four foods to represent the four tastes: sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy. This symbolizes the groom’s commitment to go through good and bad times with the bride. Of course, we let Jenna do the easy ones: honey for sweet, and lemonade for sour. I then follow-up with spicy and bitter, which take the form of chilli sauce and a kale smoothie.
Next up is Marilyn, who leads the men through the lyrics of
O Sole Mio
, making them repeat after her in soppy, dramatic tones.
“Louder!” she urges. “Elise has to be able to hear you!”
Harriet goes after that, ordering everybody through a routine of push-ups and jumping jacks. As the men shed their suit jackets to comply, Fred shoots a grin at me, clearly relieved to be spared from participating.
Emma, our resident matchmaker, then brings out a big box filled with shoes contributed by all of us.
“Only one shoe in this box belongs to Elise,” she says. “William, you have to identify which one it is.”
“That one’s Anne’s, for what it’s worth,” says Fred from the corner.
“Shh! You’re not supposed to help, don’t make it too easy for him!” says Emma.
William is a software engineer to the core, because he takes out all the shoes from the box, and lines them up in a perfect straight row according to size. He eliminates everything that’s too big or too small, then re-arranges them again according to colour. After several minutes of scrutiny, he picks up one of them and waves it at Emma.
“I think it’s this one,” he says. “Elise likes her heels exactly three inches high, it looks like her size, and she always goes for the boldest colours.”
The final and bawdiest challenge falls to Kaitlyn. She brings out a box of oversize lacy bras and panties, which the men put on over their dress shirts and trousers, after which she makes them gyrate to Right Said Fred’s
I’m Too Sexy
, with the professional videographer filming all the hijinks, of course.
With the challenges completed, the men don their suit jackets again, and Lanie haggles with them for the red packet they must give to get past us. They land on a sum of $888 (shh, all of this is choreographed) and after paying us off, William opens the door to Elise’s bedroom. Even though it is morning, she’s in a luxurious ball gown overlaid with beaded lace, her face shielded by her veil.
After another carefully choreographed moment where William lifts the veil and they share a romantic kiss, we take our leave of Elise’s parents and relatives, and get into our convoy of cars to head over to the groom’s house. Elise has rented a minivan for the bridesmaids, and Fred makes himself useful by driving it, opening the front passenger door for me as everyone else piles into the back.
In preparation for the new arrivals to the family, William has moved, and we pull up to a brownstone building overlooking the Charles River, a stone’s throw away from the route where Fred and I used to run. Even though William and Elise are earning a handsome salary at Google, I know this area is still more expensive than they can afford on their own, so I can only surmise that his parents must have helped them out. With the tight timeline for the wedding, their spacious apartment looks sparsely furnished; they haven’t had time to do anything except move all the things he already had over to the new place. Gianna opens the door to our party, and in addition to William’s parents and Gianna’s adoptive family, Harville and his family have also made an unexpected appearance.
William and Elise pay their respects to the elders, getting on their knees to serve tea in tiny cups to his parents and Gianna’s adoptive parents in turn. After that, the party proceeds to their bedroom, where the marital bed is dressed in shiny red silk sheets. And that’s when I know what Harville is here for.
“C’mon, Mikey,” he says, picking up Michael and lifting him onto the bed. “Here you go.”
“But you won’t let me jump on the bed at home!” protests Michael. “Why? I want Mia to come play with me!”
“Sorry, honey,” coaxes Elinor. “Just two minutes, OK? Just let this nice man take a photo, and then you can go play with Mia.”
Mia scrambles over to get up the bed with Michael, only for her dad to grab hold of her. Seeing that Harville doesn’t quite have the heart to pry her away, Fred goes over to help out.
“Mimi, wanna get on an airplane?” he says, crouching down and letting her climb onto his shoulders. “Let’s go, let’s fly away.” He heads out of the room and down the hallway.
At the sight of Harville and Fred whisking Mia away, Gianna bursts into tears and runs out of the room, and I follow her. She slips into an adjacent bedroom, which is presumably hers, and closes the door.
“Gianna,” I say, knocking lightly. “Gianna, it’s me. Will you let me in?”
She opens the door a crack, then admits me, bowing her head slightly in an attempt for her hair to hide her tear-stained face. Gently, I fold her into my arms for a hug, silently waiting for her to unburden herself.
“That ceremony,” Gianna explains between sobs, “they need a little boy to jump on the bed, because it’s supposed to bless the couple with a son. That’s why we had to borrow Michael, and Mia isn’t allowed up there with him, because girls just won’t do.”
“Gianna,” I stroke her back gently, “listen to me. We already know the gender of the first child that William and Elise will call their own, and that’s not stopping them from going completely baby crazy. Honestly, I don’t know who’s been more excited about that baby lately, between them and Lanie. This is just a ritual, and once they’ve checked the box and gone through the motions, it won’t change a thing about whether they treasure that girl child as much as any of the others who might follow. As much as they treasure you, in fact.”
After Gianna cries out all her tears, I straighten up and put my hands on each of her shoulders.
“It’s time for you to get Elise’s next dress to her now,” I remind her. “Want me to help fix your makeup?”
We pop into Gianna’s ensuite to give her face a wash and redo her makeup, before returning to the master bedroom where everyone is still gathered around the bed waiting for us, with Michael and Mia happily playing on the floor now that the bed-jumping ritual is over. Gianna opens the closet and takes out a floral print Oscar de la Renta day dress, and Marilyn chases everyone except Jenna and me out of the room. Elise has to change before she can go back to her apartment, because in the old days, brides used to stay three days at the groom’s house before they could pay their respects to their family, so the change of clothing is supposed to simulate her staying overnight. This complicates things because her hairstyle needs to withstand the change of dress, which is why it takes two of us to whisk the first dress away after she steps out of it to prevent it from sagging on the floor and getting wrinkled, and then we pull the second one over her head carefully, making sure it won’t muss up her hair.
Back at Elise’s apartment, the tea ceremony gets repeated all over again with her parents and her two sets of uncles and aunts: Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, and Mr. and Mrs. Philips. With the addition of the elder members of the family, we have two more vehicles in our convoy heading over to the courthouse.
Due to the difference in their religious backgrounds, Elise and William decided to have a secular exchange of vows instead of a church service, which means only the immediate family members are able to witness their courthouse ceremony. The rest of us congregate outside the building waiting for them to emerge, after which the procession of cars goes to the Boston Public Garden where a catered buffet lunch awaits us, complete with those fancy party plates that have notches to hold our champagne flutes. It’s an extremely picturesque setting, but I’m starting to feel exhausted standing up for so many hours without any respite, and I can hardly imagine how much stamina Elise and William need to get through the rest of the day.
In the evening, I’m not needed to get Elise ready for the Chinese wedding banquet at the Mandarin Oriental; Kaitlyn and Lanie are manning the front desk, so Fred and I can join the guests milling at the cocktail hour and catch up with all our old friends from college. Although Benwick and Francis weren’t part of the morning celebrations, they join us for the evening party, clad in matching jacquard silk blazers in tune with the atmosphere. As far as Chinese wedding dinners go, this one is relatively small with five tables of ten; Elise told me if they were having the banquet in China, they’d probably be expected to host fifty to a hundred tables.
Jenna and Chase, who are the maid-of-honour and best man, are our emcees for the night, repeating the announcements in English and Mandarin respectively. They ask us to rise for the grand entrance of the bridal couple, and the double doors to the banquet room open to the sound of Mendelssohn’s
Wedding March
. Arm in arm, Elise and William march in together with ramrod straight posture, wearing the same gown and suit from the very beginning of the day, her massive train trailing behind her.
The bridal couple taking their seats at the head table is the cue for us to get seated too, so the first course of the dinner can be served. All the lights are dimmed, and then a line of serving staff marches in to the rhythm of peppy background music, each of them balancing a plate of food on one upturned palm. They fan out in formation until each one of them is standing beside a table, and then they place the plates on the lazy Susan in the middle of each table. It’s an assortment of delicately sliced Chinese cold cuts, and this is only the appetizer course; the menu cards on our tables say there will be nine courses all in all.
We’ve barely finished the third course when Elise and William sneak out again; they’ve hardly had a chance to touch any of their food tonight. At the end of the fourth course, Jenna and Chase get back on the stage, to announce the second grand entrance of the wedding couple.
Elise has changed into a floor-length red silk
qipao
with plenty of brightly coloured flowers embroidered on it, a red peony hairpiece pinned into the spot where her ivory one had been. To match, William wears a traditional silk pant suit with a Mandarin collared jacket. This time, they stroll in rather than marching, with a slightly more relaxed bearing, to the background of Palchelbel’s
Canon in D Major
.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce a special musical item in honour of the bride and groom,” says Jenna, with Chase translating her words into Mandarin immediately after. “Please put your hands together for Miss Gianna Doherty, who also goes by the name of Deng Jia, and Mrs. Anne Wentworth!”
This was the thing that kept me so busy in between the two weddings; after Gianna and William had been so kind to play at my wedding, I couldn’t possibly say no when Gianna asked me to accompany her for William’s.
“Gianna, I need to warn you, I’m terribly out of practice,” I’d said. “Remember, I haven’t gone anywhere near a piano since eighth grade.”
“Playing the piano is like riding a bike,” she’d told me. “And you can trust me to choose a piece that you’ll feel comfortable to play.”
Fred didn’t hesitate to go out with me to buy an electronic keyboard to practice on, and then I continued on the old upright piano in Grandma’s house before Mary’s wedding, followed by an entire week with Gianna at her adoptive parents’ home in Cape Cod rehearsing together to get our parts in sync. The result is tonight – the first time in my life I’ve ever attempted to play in front of anyone except my family.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I begin, “Elise grew up in Albany, in the shadow of the Adirondack Mountains. It is no wonder that her first love was the countryside; when we were in boarding school together, we never passed up any opportunities we were given to explore and enjoy the natural treasures of upstate New York.”
“And so,” Gianna picks up the narrative, “to combine Elise’s love of nature and William’s love of classical music, we would like to present
The Lark Ascending
by Ralph Vaughan-Williams. This piece is inspired by a poem extolling the beauty of the English countryside, and some of you may have heard it in orchestra performances. But even before the orchestra version was conceived, it was initially written for violin and piano, which is how we will be performing it.”
As we take up our respective positions on the stage, I realize it’s the first time I’ve ever sat at a grand piano, but I steel myself not to be intimidated by resolutely fooling myself that every piano is the same. Gianna turns her head back and gives me a nod, which is my cue to start, playing two bars of chords before taking my hands off the keyboard as she picks up the melody on her violin.
In this song, Gianna is supposed to be the lark, and all I need to do is play chords, providing the background for her to soar against. With the exception of a short fancy part, the tempo is slow enough to be manageable for me, with all the trills and decorations coming from Gianna, showing off her virtuosity. Though this is an instrumental piece with no lyrics, the music was built upon these lines:
He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.
For singing till his heaven fills,
‘Tis love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup
And he the wine which overflows
To lift us with him as he goes.
Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.
When Gianna and I get up from our bow at the end of the performance, Mr. Deng is the first person to rise, meeting the eyes of his daughter with a gaze of love and approbation. Mrs. Deng joins him in quick succession, and then Fred is the third person to spring to his feet, before everybody else gradually follows suit. As the sound of applause starts to fade, Gianna shouts into the crowd.
“
Baba, mama, wo ai ni
,” she says. “Papa, Mama, I love you.”
“And now,” announces Jenna, “we would like to invite our groom, Mr. William Deng, to make his speech.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” begins William, “Papa, Mama, Mr. and Mrs. Barnett, and all our family and friends, thank you for gracing us with your presence today. I am not very good with words, so tonight I will express myself with music instead. I am going to serenade my new wife, Mrs. Elise Deng, with a familiar Chinese love song:
Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xin
, which means, ‘The Moon Represents My Heart’.
“Normally, I would ask my sister to accompany me, but on this night, I want to highlight the unity of our two families by having Elise’s sister do the honours for a change. On the piano, please welcome Miss Marilyn Barnett!”
William walks to the centre of the stage, and a hotel server brings his violin to him while Marilyn seats herself at the piano. They play the song twice through; on the first time, William plays it cleanly and simply, letting the violin sing the notes. But on the second run around, the two of them embellish the song with a whole bunch of extra notes, both running wild to show off their skills, ending by drawing the final note out in a dramatic flourish.
“Thank you!” says Jenna, taking back the podium, as William hands his violin back to the server to bring off stage. “We would now like to invite the toasting party to join the family members on stage for the champagne toasts.”
Two servers roll a pyramid of champagne glasses onto the stage, as William stretches out his hand to help Elise step up. Fred makes his way to the stage, because William asked him, Harville and Benwick to join the toasting party “to add volume”. With the entire group assembled, the hotel staff hand William and Elise a bottle of champagne, which they pick up together, pouring the champagne over the pyramid to fill the glasses.
“Now, I know William is from Beijing,” says Chase, after the champagne glasses are distributed among the people on the stage, “but nothing is more expressive than the Cantonese toasts which I’m used to. So, when I say ‘Yam’, you say ‘Seng’. That’s the Cantonese way of saying ‘cheers’. We are going to do this three times, and I want to hear all your voices. Ready? Yam…”
“SENG!” shouts the assembled group heartily.
“One more time!” shouts Chase. “YAAAAMMMMM….”
“SENG!”
“Last time! Yam yam yam yam yam yam YAAAAMMMM…..”
“SENG!”
This last round is loud enough to send the building crumbling down, and my ears keep ringing until I wonder if I’m going deaf. If I ever thought Frederick, Harville and Benwick tend to morph into cavemen after one beer too many, well, they’ve got nothing on William and his groomsmen.
“Anne, I liked your wedding better,” says Harriet. “The scale of this is so impressive, and Elise’s dresses are all beautiful, but today she’s been almost… ornamental, if you know what I mean. She’s usually the most outspoken of all of us, but unlike you, she hasn’t had the chance to put her unique stamp on the occasion.”
“Thanks, Harriet,” I say. “I’ll bet today was back-breaking for Elise, but I don’t doubt it’ll still be a day she’ll never forget all the same. True, she never had a chance to speak the way I did, but I guess it can’t be helped when it’s in William’s character to stick rigidly to protocol and customs. In any case, I think the way he serenaded her with his violin was very romantic.”
It turns out both of us were wrong, and William and Elise get to put their unique stamp on their wedding after all, though they don’t get to speak live in person. Before they serve the ninth and final course, a dessert of sweet soup with sago pearls, Jenna announces yet another item.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to present a short video of the bride and groom. As you enjoy your dessert, please allow us to share with you the story of William and Elise.”
The video begins with a shot of William and Elise nestled cosily in a loveseat in William’s old townhouse, taking the form of an interview with someone off-screen, probably belonging to the film crew.
“Hi, I’m William,” says the owner of that name, with an easy smile and a friendly wave. I’ve never seen him this comfortable with himself before; even though he knows he’s going on camera, it seems as if all his usual awkwardness and bashfulness has melted away.
“And I’m Elise,” she says. “Together, we’re going to tell you about our path to this special day.”
A picture of Elise and Jenna eating bananas in their highchairs fills the screen; Elise has broken hers into two, waving a chunk in each hand with her face smeared full of yellow goo, while Jenna nibbles primly on the tip of hers; she must be the daintiest two-year old who ever lived.
“Before I went to college, I hardly ever went out of upstate New York,” says Elise in voiceover. “You might call me a small-town girl, but even though my family wasn’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, I grew up never feeling as if I lacked anything. Daddy, Mom, thank you for bringing us up in a house full of liveliness and laughter; there might have been too much noise at times, but for the most part, they were happy noises.”
As Elise speaks, the slide show flits through various pictures from her childhood, ending with one of all five sisters in their bathing suits in the summertime, piled up laughing on a Slip ‘n’ Slide in their backyard.
“I’ve always loved the trees and the mountains, because Daddy used to take me and Jenna camping when we were small. It all changed when we got three more sisters, because five girls are a bit too much for anyone to handle, but after I went away for high school, I was lucky to have so many opportunities to experience the wonders of New England. At Buffalo Seminary, I made some of the best friends of my life.”
To my surprise, the slide show lands on a picture of her and me, waving from a treetop ropes course during one of our outings at SEM.
“I see myself as something of a free spirit. Hiking, coding, tinkering, and refashioning – you name it, I’ve done a little bit of it. It took me so long to settle down, because I wanted to have it all and do it all. Copernicus was a polymath, and I’d hardly call myself worthy of that title, but ever since Daddy told me I could be his reincarnation, I wanted to do all the things, and not necessarily only the practical ones. In essence, I think I’m multi-talented, but William probably thinks I’m just sloppy.”
At the end of a series of pictures showing the gamut of her childhood garage projects and fashion experiments, the camera cuts back to her playfully elbowing William with a teasing look.
“I don’t think Elise is sloppy,” says William, picking up the narrative. “I think she’s fascinating and original, because I grew up very differently from her. For most of my childhood, I was a city boy in Beijing, except that one year when I lived with my grandparents on their farm in Heilongjiang. That’s me, aged twelve, milking a cow.”
“Awww…” sighs Emma at the sight of twelve-year-old William in a red-and-blue patterned sweater, crouching in the dirt beside said cow. “Nobody would’ve guessed he was so cute when he was young.”
“Most twelve-year-olds would have missed their Game Boys. I had one, but I didn’t miss it at all. Instead, I missed my violin, because it was the first time that I’d been without it since age three.”
If twelve-year-old William was cute, the photo of three-year-old William, with chubby cheeks and crew-cut hair, solemnly drawing his bow across a tiny violin, is even more adorable; Emma sighs and squeals some more, showing me the heart sign with her hands.
“By the time I met Elise, I’d forgotten myself. Even though my violin was my first love, I had cast it aside, because I was so obsessed with success and perfection that I lost touch with everything that matters. But everywhere I went, I was supposed to be a high achiever, so I believed I couldn’t ever afford to fail. That’s me, graduating from Andover, though I betrayed my alma mater by going to Harvard instead of Yale.”
“How did you both meet?” asks the interviewer, the camera cutting back to the loveseat shot.
“I’d like to think it’s because Google gives us too much free food,” replies Elise. “Our most significant encounters were at the coffee stand and the cafeteria.”
“Well, everybody loves free food,” says the interviewer. “And now, we’re going to share some snippets of William and Elise’s special day.”
Footage of this very morning’s door games starts to play, and I gape in astonishment at how quickly the crew have managed to put this together and make it look professionally seamless.
“Wow,” remarks Fred, taking the words out of my mouth. “Those guys must’ve been cutting this all day. That probably cost a ton of money.”
“Do you wish we could’ve afforded it?” I ask him. “Because I don’t; I’m perfectly happy with what we had.”
“I’m with you,” replies Fred. “I wouldn’t want to pay for someone to capture me on film doing stuff like that.”
As if on cue, the camera cuts to Kaitlyn yelling to the row of bra- and panty-clad men, “Guys, I want to see you swing your pelvis like Elvis!”
The camera crew must’ve been amazingly astute, because they cut away from William, who wasn’t so much dancing as awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to another, and zoom in on Chase, just in time to catch him hamming it up by ripping the bra off and twirling it over his head. They then cut over to Jenna, capturing the rapturous expression on her face.
“I think we’re going to have another couple soon,” declares Emma. “Don’t you think they were so simpatico with their emcee announcements?”
“Maybe,” I reply, “but Elise might not appreciate losing all the men she works with at Google because they’ve been co-opted into her family.”
The camera follows our every move of the morning, including footage of the courthouse vows, right up to our lunch reception at the Boston Public Garden.
“And now, back to the studio,” says the interviewer in voice-over, taking us back to the scene with the loveseat. “William, what do you love most about Elise?”
“That’s simple,” he says. “Before she came into my life, I’d forgotten how to smile. She brought joy into my life and showed me how to have fun again.”
“And Elise, what do you love most about William?”
“There are so many things I’ve grown to love about William, but if I had to name just one, it would be his sense of responsibility. I had a front-row seat to his journey of reconnecting with his sister, and it’s really touching to see how he makes sure she knows exactly how much she’s loved by her birth family, especially him. He even feels responsible for all our code at work. Well, I never thought I’d say this, but responsibility is sexy.”
They end off with a shot of William and Elise getting into their rented Lamborghini and driving away from the Boston Public Garden at the end of the lunch reception, carefully showing the logo at the back of the car and covering the constipated sound of the engine with background music (because how fast can you drive a Lambo in downtown Boston)?
It’s nearly midnight by the time they clear up dessert and the guests start to leave; William and Elise are back on their feet again, along with both sets of parents and all the siblings, personally shaking hands and saying goodbye to each and every one of us.
“We didn’t have much privacy on our wedding night, but we sure had more energy left over,” says Fred on the short walk back to our hotel. “By the time they get to their suite, they’ll be way too tired to remember what they want to do in it.”
“Yep, I have no idea how Elise stayed upright all this time,” I acknowledge. “But if there was anyone who could carry this off, she’d definitely have to be the one.”
Posted on 2022-05-14
The Summer of Weddings ends up reminding me that procreation is one of the outcomes of matrimony, for it ends up becoming the Summer of Babies as well. I’m not going to give you all the gory details but suffice it to say that within a fortnight of returning from Boston, my job search got waylaid by a welcome new development. You can probably guess what it is, if I tell you that it not only leaves Fred and me in seventh heaven, but also gives him the bragging rights to be first in the race to parenthood among his siblings, despite being the youngest. Sibling rivalry being the perverse thing that it is, he wastes no time calling them to share the news and playfully gloat, making long-distance calls across two oceans now that Sophia and AJ are based in Japan.
Although expecting a baby is a happy affair, it throws my life off in multiple ways, for it’s no point searching for a job now when nobody will employ someone who’ll be out on maternity leave before long. And since it’s right in the middle of summer, it’s too late for me to apply for an online Master’s degree to make use of the downtime. With the combination of the oppressive desert heat and morning sickness, anyway, about fifty percent of my waking hours are unproductive. Fred helps where he can, trying to spare me from the smells of the kitchen by making me lunch before he leaves and dinner after he comes back, but his days are long, and sometimes he’s off for entire weekends on cross-countries. I try to fill the hours by buying books for self-improvement, reading up about business and management, but still, sometimes I can’t help feeling the loneliness of being in a city which is still new to me, with no local friends or family to give us companionship or support.
But apparently, misery loves company; when Mary starts getting into the same plight a month later, I start feeling less alone, and this gives me a perverse lift to my spirits.
“I’m
dyiiinnngggg
,” she whines over the phone; being three hours ahead of us, she wakes us up at 4AM, beating even Frederick’s alarm clock to it.
“Mary,” I mumble, “I’m in the same boat and being baked alive besides. You’ll live.” And then I have no idea whether I properly said goodbye before slipping my cell phone under the pillow, rolling over under Frederick’s arm and falling asleep again.
Meanwhile, Lanie’s baby arrives, and Elise posts the pictures on Facebook. “Welcome to the world, Jocelyn Barnett-Deng!” the caption reads.
“Isn’t she just adorable?” gushes Elise over the phone. “Another half a year, give or take, and you’ll be joining the club too. You must be so excited!”
“In theory I am,” I admit, “but I’m having trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel right now. At this point, all I can think of is how awful those first few months must’ve been for Lanie, having to hide her morning sickness from your parents and her teachers at school. Honestly, she deserves an award for her stoicism and endurance. How is she doing, by the way?”
“She’s doing pretty well,” says Elise. “We’re having her stay with us in Boston for senior year, so she can qualify for in-state tuition when she goes to college. She was the one who named Jocelyn – she said she wanted to honor me in some way, and she thinks I’m like Jo March, so that was her inspiration for choosing the name. I appreciate the sentiment, though I haven’t figured out yet if I think it’s a compliment or not.”
“You’ve always liked to look on the bright side of things, so why wouldn’t it be one?” I reply. “When I was little, I used to like Beth, because I felt I had to be like her for my teachers and family to like me. But nobody can ever be perfectly kind to everyone a hundred percent of the time, so I eventually realized I was setting myself up for failure. If you take the best parts of Jo, like her intelligence, creativity, courage, and loyalty to her family, you have those things in spades, and it’s wonderful that Lanie sees all that in you.”
The Harvilles are the next to jump on to the baby bandwagon, sending us a photo of their latest family member, a newborn with a shock of jet-black hair.
“Welcome to the family, Trinh Harville!” their email reads.
“It’ll still be a long road until we can become her forever family,” acknowledges Harville, “but we’ll continue to hope, and to pray.”
“She’s so beautiful,” says Elinor. “I’ve loved her from the very first moment we picked her up from the hospital. Don’t you think she’s sweet?”
When Christmas comes, it’s the first holiday season with nobody visiting Father and Liz in Palm Beach. During the years of Grandma’s illness, I’d sent Mary down on her own, and last year, I was pleasantly surprised that an Elliot Christmas could actually be bearable with the additions of Fred and Charles to the party. This year, though, neither Mary nor I are in any shape to travel, so I remain in my little island with Fred, devouring log cake and all the Christmas cards our friends and family send, even the one from Father and Liz.
“Dear Anne, although we shall miss your presence this holiday season, you give us immeasurable pride in adding a new son to the family. We wish you and your unborn child a merry Christmas.”
With the spring, our first child arrives. I’m the one who comes up with his name, something to symbolize Fred’s journey as a child of inner-city Detroit to realizing his biggest dreams.
“Let’s call him Marshall,” I suggest, “after all, when
Lose Yourself
came out, didn’t you say it could well be singing about your life?”
“Yes, I did,” acknowledges Fred, “and it’s true, don’t you think? If I screwed up anywhere along the way, we wouldn’t be here today; I only had one shot, one opportunity for everything I did, and it’s only by all my crazy luck that all those opportunities worked out.”
Marshall ends up lighter than we expect, which Father immediately picks up when we share his newborn pictures on Facebook.
“That child is an Elliot by looks indeed, and I hope you will carry on the Elliot tradition in his upbringing,” is the comment Father posts. His approval gives me cold comfort, when I was looking forward to Marshall embodying a part of me and a part of Fred; the last thing I want is for our son to be all Elliot and no Wentworth.
“Don’t lose heart,” Sophia tells us on the phone. “I was seven when Fred was born, so I remember what he looked like, and Marshall looks just like he did, all right. Wait and see, his colour will come in time.”
Indeed, Marshall gets darker in the next few weeks, settling in at a shade somewhere in between Fred and me, just as I’d initially expected and hoped. I chuckle to myself thinking how taken aback Father will be the next time he sees his first-born grandson, though I suppose he won’t have time to pay us too much attention after Mary gives birth to Charles Musgrove Jr.
“He’s been bugging us to fly to Palm Beach so he can meet Charlie in person,” Mary complains, “but ugh, I’m so sore, and there’s no way I’m getting on a plane with a baby. Keeping up with little Charlie’s appetite, which is endless by the way, is killing me already. So, count yourself lucky if Father hasn’t been bothering you.”
With a baby to occupy me round-the-clock, all talk of going back to work goes to the back burner for the first year. In the meantime, Harville’s family continues to grow, adding a group of three siblings to the brood: twelve-year-old DeShaun, seven-year-old Destiny, and three-year-old Darnell.
“Six kids?” I ask Elinor. “How are you holding up?” I already have my hands full taking care of one baby around Fred’s punishing schedule, and it floors me how she can keep her head so well with her family size doubling overnight.
“It’s gotten better now with our new house,” she says calmly. “We have enough space for everyone, and the day care down the street is a godsend.”
The Christmas of 2006, we have another good reason to skip the visit to Father, because Fred has yet another big break, getting into the Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB. This means that we’ll be in the same town as one of our friends at long last, with Harville working in nearby Palmdale and living in Santa Clarita. Packing up is even harder than the last time with a ton of baby gear, but at least this time it isn’t as much of a drive as the previous time. The six-hour drive is the longest road trip we’ve ever brought nine-month-old Marshall on, but we power on through the day, packing an ample supply of food, water and toys in the car, and making a few rest stops along the way.
When we call the Harvilles the day after we arrive, we learn, to our horror, that Harville’s in hospital; Elinor tells us he tore his ACL and meniscus after being tackled on the soccer pitch and will be needing surgery. The contents of our home are still making their way to us and all we have is the carload of items we brought to our hotel, but I repack an overnight bag right away and drive to Santa Clarita, dropping Fred off at the hospital and landing at the Harvilles’ home with Marshall in tow.
The “new house” that Elinor mentioned turns out to be a dated ‘70s bilevel with a popcorn ceiling and worn carpet, but it does have a sizeable daylight basement housing the older kids’ bedrooms and the children’s playroom. Despite the dingy state of the house, it’s situated in a well-kept suburban neighborhood at the end of a cul-de-sac, perfect for kids to play, and their large, flat backyard looks out to a scenic view of the rolling hills. With the midday sun, the temps are in the mid-sixties even though it’s technically in the middle of winter, and DeShaun and Michael, who were shooting hoops out front, run over to greet me as I waddle up their front driveway with Marshall balanced on one hip and my duffel bag slung over the opposite shoulder. Apparently, nobody’s gone to school today, which is hardly a surprise since Elinor would need to clone herself three times over to juggle the hospital, school, and day care all on her own.
“Mrs. Wentworth! Can I carry him? Please?” asks seven-year-old Michael enthusiastically.
“Mikey, how about this, can you help me with my bag please, and tell your mommy I’m here? When we’re all settled in, then you can play with him.”
“You da Captain’s wife?” asks thirteen-year-old DeShaun, who’s meeting me for the first time. “He with you? I’d really like to say hi to him.”
“Yes. You must be DeShaun,” I say, wedging Marshall more securely on my hip and giving him a lopsided fist-bump with my free hand. “Fred’s at the hospital with your dad today, and I came by to see if your mom needs any help overnight.”
“Oh.” DeShaun hangs his head. “Yeah, I guess Dad got hurt pretty bad, huh? And it’s all my fault.”
“Maybe it isn’t,” I reassure him. “Let’s talk about it later, after we go inside, and I say hello to your mom. Could you be so kind as to open the door for me, please?”
I scrape one shoe off each foot in the narrow foyer, toeing them off while trying to keep Marshall balanced on my hip, then make my way up the half-stairs to the upper level in my stocking feet.
“Ow!” I squeal, jerking abruptly as I flinch, promptly eliciting a wail from Marshall.
“Anne? Are you OK?” calls Elinor from the open-plan kitchen. “I’d come, but I’m chained to the stove right now.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, patting Marshall on the back to calm him down. “I think I just stepped on a Lego, is all.”
Elinor turns down the heat on the pasta sauce that’s bubbling on the stovetop, and plops down next to me on the overstuffed living room couch. Toys engulf the whole house, with Destiny and Mia playing with their Barbies in one corner, and Michael and Darnell building a Lego tower in another. Trinh, at eighteen months old, toddles around on her bare feet, skillfully navigating around all the stray Legos on the floor. I am seriously impressed, not only because she doesn’t step on any of them, but also because miraculously, she hasn’t tried to pop them into her mouth either.
“DeShaun, can you go watch the stove for me?” Elinor requests. “There’s a good boy.”
“So, how did Tom hurt himself?” I ask. “DeShaun seems to think that he’s to blame.”
Elinor sighs. “I told him, he’s not a teenager anymore. But he insists on playing soccer and basketball with DeShaun and his friends anyway. DeShaun can be pretty physical when he plays, and he got this kid’s back up by getting the ball away with a tackle that, honestly, was rougher than it needed to be. Then he passed the ball to Tom, who was heading for the goal when the boy DeShaun tackled ploughed right into him while trying to get the ball back. That’s how he ended up landing on his knee, with a two-hundred-pound thirteen-year-old on top of him.”
“Ouch,” I say. “That has to be the worst of luck.”
I swear Elinor has superpowers, for I have no idea how she could possibly have managed her husband’s hospital admission, put meals on the table, kept Trinh in fresh diapers, and monitored the exact location of all six kids single-handedly for the last twenty-four hours. With Marshall and me around, we have one more baby in diapers, but another pair of eyes and hands, which hopefully turns the equation in a net positive direction. Fred calls, mid-afternoon, and I put my cell phone on speaker mode so both of us can hear and talk to him at the same time.
“Surgery’s done,” Fred updates. “He’s still out of it, though. They say he can go home after he wakes up – no, don’t worry, I can get a cab and bring him back.”
Most of our afternoon is about maintaining and restoring order; luckily, Trinh is just starting to transition from a crib to a toddler bed, so there’s space for us to put her and Marshall down for their afternoon nap. With me watching the younger children, Elinor can corral everyone else down to the playroom, breaking into her store of contraband (just kidding, I meant cartoons, a.k.a. the ultimate mom contraband) to keep down the constant litany of “I’m bored” from the middle kids. DeShaun, who understandably thinks cartoons are childish at his age, goes out to the backyard with his basketball and I hear a dull, rhythmic thump intermingled with the sound of the cartoons as he bounces it off the side of the house. After the little ones wake up, I bring them downstairs to have the run of the playroom, so Elinor can start making dinner.
It's past 5 PM when the ground-floor entry door from the garage opens, and Fred helps a limping Harville into the house. One leg is encased in a long black brace, and he’ll probably need the crutches he’s on for several weeks at least. But what shocks me the most is the sight of his face; he’s only turning twenty-nine this year, but his thin, lined face makes him look at least ten years older than that. I never expected him to age so much since we last saw him, but then, I suppose he’s taken on more than ten years’ additional responsibility in the past year when he adopted DeShaun and his siblings. After all, for most men, twenty-nine would be far too young to be the father of a teen.
“Daddy!” the younger kids squeal, and Elinor and I catch them one by one to keep them from swarming their father. Harville hops over to the long sectional playroom couch, swinging his bad leg up to rest horizontally along one arm of it with a little help from Fred.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” says DeShaun contritely, sidling up to the couch.
“You didn’t cause my injury, DeShaun,” Harville replies. “I don’t consider it to be your fault.”
“But if we hadn’t played rough, Pete and me, you might not have got hurt.”
“That’s probably true,” acknowledges Harville, “and I guess I could say some choice words about being a gentleman on the pitch, but these are the realities of life. Even if you try not to play too rough, the fact is, you can’t control what other people do. Still, you gotta remember to always fight fair.”
“DeShaun, Mikey,” he continues, “can you do something for your old man, please? I’m going to need your room for a while, until I can get up the stairs. Will you bring down all my clothes – don’t forget my PJs and underwear – and put them in your room for me? Mikey, you’ll need to sleep upstairs with Darnell for a bit, and DeShaun, I hope you don’t mind if I bunk in with you.”
“OK,” says Michael, and DeShaun says, “Yessir,” before they scamper off to do his bidding.
Harville scootches down until he’s lying completely horizontal on the couch, his tall form occupying its entire length.
“Trinh, Darnell, want to climb onto your daddy?” he says. “Be careful, don’t kick my bad leg.”
Darnell launches himself at the couch, and Harville pulls him onto his chest, while Elinor carefully puts Trinh onto him after he gets Darnell settled. The two toddlers sprawl face down on top of him, and he wraps one arm around each of them, tickling them until they can’t stop laughing. Eager for some of the action too, Destiny and Mia bend over to sprawl on top of the giggling human pile, though they sensibly keep their feet on the ground to make sure they don’t crush their father.
Elinor turns to me with a helpless shrug. “They’ll be the death of me,” she says.
Fred’s stifled yawn reminds me that only yesterday he’d spent six and a half hours at the wheel, so I suppose it’s time to get him and Marshall back to our hotel now that Harville has been discharged from the hospital.
“Take care, OK?” I say to Elinor. “And if you need anything, just give us a call.”
The three years we end up spending in California are the best ones of our lives so far, for I manage to get a job again, taking advantage from excellent day care recommendations from Elinor to get Marshall covered. TPS is intense, but at the end of 48 strenuous weeks, Fred has completed the work of a two-year Master’s degree, another thing he’ll need for further advancement of his military career. Though his hours are still long and irregular, he still makes time to spend a few hours here and there with the Harvilles, shooting hoops with the boys since their dad has to stay off sports for a year. And in early 2008, our second child comes; this time, it’s Fred’s turn to choose his name.
“We’re calling him Lionel,” he says, “in honor of your 2006 World Cup hero.”
“How did you know I like Lionel Messi?” I ask him. “Ed’s never had any success in getting you interested in soccer at all.”
“Benwick,” comes Fred’s reply. “He never fails to wax lyrical about how you share his passion for poetry in soccer.”
Lionel’s arrival means we need to postpone our big thirtieth birthday bash by a year; the following summer, we go on a vacation to New York, the first real holiday we’ve had since the Summer of Weddings. Of course, Benwick is one of the reasons why we choose to go there, since we haven’t seen any of our friends on the East Coast in person for more than four years. Who would’ve known that Fred would end up being witness to one of the worst tragedies in Harville and Benwick’s lives, and that we’d end up having a grief-stricken Benwick come back to California with us?
The Harville house gets into disarray for a while as it accommodates its latest new occupant, but over the latter half of the year he begins to recover, and by the time we have to leave, he’s back to work and on his own feet again.
Yes, it turns out, all good things do come to an end, though they sometimes give way to even better things in turn. In summer 2010, Fred completes his ten-year service commitment, and that’s when he gets his promotion to Major. With the help of Destiny and Mia, Elinor and I bake a giant sheet cake. Even though Sophia and AJ are still in Japan, Edward flies over to celebrate with his new wife Ngozi, reminding Fred how he’d waited for the one with the cake the way Fred had asked him to all those years ago. Surrounded by his family, all his closest friends, and the brother who hasn’t lived in the same country as him for a decade and a half, Fred cuts his cake, using, you guessed it, a sabre.
After Fred’s promotion, one of our biggest shared dreams comes true: he gets into the Thunderbirds, which means we need to move to their home base at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas. It’s immeasurably sad for us to bid the Harvilles and Benwick goodbye, but as with every bittersweet moment in life, we focus on moving forward.
On a clear, sunny morning, Frederick performs in his first air show, and I pick a sunny spot on the grass to watch, with Lionel in his stroller and Marshall sitting beside me. The six F-16 jets soar upwards into the cloudless blue sky, each leaving a trail of white in their wake.
“That’s Daddy’s plane,” I tell our sons, pointing to the aircraft flying by upside down in the Calypso pass, one of a pair of solos. As the planes break out of formation and bank into a turn, the vapor trails they leave become two lines of clouds, just like the ones Mom painted in that sky on my ceiling a lifetime ago.
END OF SECTION I - CLOUDS
To Be Continued ...
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