DIED 1991, 2011
IT IS 1956 AT the beach club, the whole crew lined up on lounges like glamorous crayons. She’s the one with the legs, the baby, just back from boring old freshman year. Have you two met? someone asks, and she looks up from her Bain de Soleil. Why, that’s the sweetest smile she’s ever seen. Poof, there goes college.
In 1965, she was the prettiest mom at my seventh birthday party, with her long, swinging hair and white patent leather belt, her third little bundle in the stroller. She wanted more but the doctor said no. Too many miscarriages, and this guy came two months early and almost didn’t make it. Then there’s the problem the doctor doesn’t know about.
Having been in a marriage something like hers decades later, I suspect she knew the truth about her husband early on—but as long as she could pretend, she absolutely did. They were the best-looking couple in town, and so much fun. And she had her three darlings; how lonely could she be? The kids were in their teens when she finally cracked. It was the third night of Hanukkah, all of them standing around the menorah wide-eyed as he headed for the door. Go, go, she screamed into the street. Just go.
There was no shortage of suitors for both of them; no shortage of busybodies and bigots, either. It was almost a relief when he moved to an apartment in the city. In some ways, he had picked the best of all times to come out, the Manhattan of the seventies and eighties, the Limelight, the Boy Bar, Studio 54. And also the worst of times: as the eighties ended, he got a sore on his foot that wouldn’t heal. She came as soon as he told her and stayed through the end, grumbling boyfriends on both sides notwithstanding.
After that, it just kept getting harder with cameras and mirrors: once allies, now bullies to be avoided. You don’t want to care so much, but how do you stop? Mom, the kids would scold when she’d try to slip out of a photo or bury her face in the nearest grandchild. Don’t be silly, you look fine. She did adore them all, but when Mr. Lung Cancer knocked on the door, she was ready. Give me just a minute, dear. I’ll be right down.