***
Lilly and I went back to New York after a wonderful Easter week, and there was a package in the mail. I ripped it open and a proof copy of The Catfish Stories, published by Shilling Publishers fell into my lap. I had almost forgotten that it was in the works and held the copy as if it were a newborn baby—MY newborn baby.
Lilly sat next to me on the sofa and we read through the 300-page paperback book with a picture of Catfish on the cover. I felt tears stream down my face as I re-read the stories Catfish had told me through the years, and which had finally become his legacy.
My life took off at the clip of a racehorse once I took the proof copy to my old workplace and handed it to Mr. Mobley, complete with red marks to indicate changes that had to be made. He ushered me into his office and I sat in one of the two leather chairs in front of his desk while we discussed a book tour he wanted the marketing department to set up for me.
"Are you up for it?" He sipped his coffee and looked at me over the top of his cup.
"I suppose I need to get myself up for it, whether I want to or not." I felt reluctant, but excited.
"This will be good for you, Susie. It'll get your mind off your sadness, give you something positive to focus on."
"What about Lilly?" I was concerned about leaving her for any length of time.
"Let's plan the tour over the summer and she can go with you." He was smiling and I could tell he was proud of the book, of me, of the company for publishing something so out of the ordinary.
The marketing people at Shilling thought it would be appropriate to launch the book in Jean Ville, where Catfish lived and was buried. Lilly and I agreed but we wanted to wait until after the anniversary of Josh's death because Father George was celebrating a special Catholic mass in his memory in late June.
*
A few weeks before the anniversary of Josh's death, my lawyer had called to tell me that the people who were leasing the Manhattan condominium were moving out. He wanted to know whether I'd like him to find another tenant. I told him I wanted to see the apartment before I decided. Lilly and I hailed a cab and I gave the driver the address Mr. Milton sent to me: 375 Park Avenue. When the taxi stopped in front of a black-glass skyscraper, I thought we were at the wrong address.
"Are we between 52nd and 53rd streets in Midtown?" I bent forward and put both hands on the top of the front seat and looked at the cabbie who smelled of stale smoke and Cheetos.
"Yes, ma'am. This is 375 Park Avenue."
I paid the fare, and Lilly and I slid out of the cab and onto the curb in front of a tall building with white stone steps across the entire front. The building was set back from Park Avenue by a large, open, granite plaza with huge fountains. Two sets of glass doors flanked a revolving entrance under a three-story portico. Lilly and I stood like Mary Tyler Moore at the opening of her television show and stared at the building, bending our necks back as far as we could, but still unable to see the top.
Lilly skipped up the stone steps and waited for me in front of the revolving doors; she got a big kick out of this and insisted on going around twice before it finally poured us into the impressive lobby of the Seagram Building.
Josh hadn't told me his condo was in the Seagram Building designed by German-American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. I'd studied his works, specifically this building completed in 1958, in an art history class in graduate school. It was thirty-eight stories high with businesses on many of the lower floors. We got on the elevator and I looked at the apartment number once again: 3618.
The lobby was lavish by any standards and the building had two very stylish restaurants, The Four Seasons and the Brasserie, both designed by Phillip Johnson. When we unlocked the door to the condominium, we were greeted by the same expensive bronze, travertine, and marble on the floors, countertops, and hardware. Even the shower head was brass, and the furniture, which I presumed was part of the rental package, was glass and bronze and pure luxury. I couldn't imagine Josh living in this fancy place.
"Oh my God!" Lilly was looking out of the floor to ceiling windows that spanned the entire apartment. "People look like ants from up here." We sat on the plush, velvet sectional sofa and I clicked a remote. Music came out of the ceiling and walls and we felt we were surrounded by Pachelbel's Canon in D. Lilly jumped and gasped, then burst out laughing.
We walked from room to room, commenting on how we would change things to make the condo more comfortable, less formal, and we agreed that our own furniture would be out of place but we certainly could do better than the cold-feeling brass and glass stuff the original decorator had chosen.
We ate at the Brasserie and left Manhattan as darkness filtered in. In the cab, Lilly and I talked about what we might do once we reached the one-year mark of Josh's death, but decided we would wait to make any life-changing decisions until then.
*
A warm noon sun blazed as we entered the chapel at St. John's and knelt in the first row. I remembered how I had thought my life was over after I'd lost Rodney. Then I'd found Josh and learned to love again, deeply and without restraint. Maybe the memory of the pain I'd endured over losing Rodney was God's way of telling me I could survive losing Josh, too.
Joe was with us at the memorial mass and the three of us went to Josh's grave and the nursing home to visit Emalene afterwards. I yearned to have Josh back, but knew that was a dream. I felt I had started a new life over the past year, although it didn’t seem real to me, yet.
We went to Marco’s for lunch. Joe told us he was getting married, which was not a surprise. He'd been dating a girl named Bridgette for two years, and Lilly liked her fine. Bridgette had two children from a previous marriage and Joe had taken over being their dad. He seemed happy and satisfied with his new life. Lilly hugged his neck and told him she was happy for him, and she meant it.
"Have you told her?" Joe looked at me over top of Lilly's head.
"Told me what?" Lilly looked from me to Joe and then glared at me, steady and unwavering. "What, Susie? Tell me. I'm almost thirteen years old. I have a right to know whatever it is you two are not telling me." She had tears filling the whites of her eyes and I could see her trying to hold them back. It broke my heart when her feelings were hurt, especially if I had something to do with it. I wanted to kill Joe but, just maybe, it was time.
"You know you were adopted, right?" I was afraid Joe would spill the truth right there in the pizzeria. I kicked him under the table and he flinched.
"I was chosen." Lilly looked defiant. I had to change my strategy because she was mature for her age, having experienced the loss of basically, two parents. What she didn't know was that she still had three—me, Joe, and Rodney.
"Okay. Fair enough. How do I say this… uhm… well… Lilly, well, I'm the one who chose for you to be chosen." My heart was beating so fast I thought it would burst from my chest. We were all very quiet as Lilly tried to absorb what I'd said, while I listened to the murmur of other customers and the clink of spoons hitting the sides of glasses.
"You are the one who did what?"
"I am the one who chose your parents so they could choose you."
"You're my… you gave me away?"
"No! I gave you life, a good life, loving parents. I loved you too much not to give you the best of everything, even if it meant you couldn't be with me. I had nothing to give you."
"Why? Why not?" Her chair scratched the floor when she stood and sounded as if it ripped the linoleum. She stormed out of the restaurant. I shouted at Joe to go after her. It was like watching a movie through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Joe caught her and hugged her to him while she tried to pull away and beat her fists on his chest. She walked away, he grabbed her, she twisted out of his grip, and they moved down the sidewalk towards Utopia Park, Joe's arm over her shoulder, Lilly trying to shake it off, walking quickly until they were out of view.
I sat in that restaurant for two hours, not knowing what to do. I finally paid the bill and walked into the sunshine and strolled, without purpose, in the direction of the park. I automatically sat on the bench where Josh and I always went, where he fed the black-backed gulls and where we watched Lilly chase the birds. Back then we were carefree and unaware of the kind of pain that awaited us.
I'm not sure how long I sat there. I didn't have anything to feed the birds, so they didn't come close to the bench. I was saying to myself, Don't feel. Don't think. I tried not to think I might have lost Lilly, not to feel the emptiness that would be mine if she chose to hate me for what I'd done.
It started to get dark, and I could hear the diesel motors and air brakes of buses as they picked up and dropped off passengers near the park. The birds began to fly into the trees to roost for the night, and the temperature dropped. I walked out of the park to the street corner, rubbing my exposed arms to warm myself, and waited for a cab to come by.
Then, suddenly, I heard a high-pitched shout that sounded like my name and saw Lilly running towards me on the sidewalk, yelling, "Susie, Susie. Wait!" I ran towards her and she jumped into my arms and wrapped her legs around my waist as she had done when she was four or five years old.
"I'm so sorry. I thought I'd lost you. We went back to Marco's…"
"It's okay, sweetheart. It's okay. I love you so much. I can't live without you."
"I love you, Susie. I mean, Mama."
"Susie is fine. Let's not change that, okay. You'll make me feel old." I looked up and saw Joe standing about a half-block away. He waved and walked off, smiling.
*
Over the next few days, as we prepared for my book tour, Lilly had lots of questions. I told her I was only eighteen and not married when she was born. I told her it was impossible for me to raise a child while I was in college, so far from family, and that, anyway, my family couldn't know about her. I tried to explain that my dad, at the time, was mayor, then a senator, an important person and what I had done could damage him politically. The explanation sounded crazy to me, so I'm sure she thought it was insane, but she glazed over my explanations and asked about what it was like to be pregnant, alone.
I told her about Josh being with me through my pregnancy and her birth, but that once she was chosen by Joe and Emma, he stopped seeing me and started seeing her. I told her Josh couldn't keep both of us in his life, so he chose her. That seemed to make her feel good and, I think, she might have thought that Josh was her biological father because she never asked the question. There would be a time when she'd know her dad was African American and the pieces of her puzzle wouldn't fit so neatly; but for now, we were straight.
*
It's not the case that you wake up on the one-year anniversary of your spouse's death and things are different. I still missed Josh as much from one morning to the next and went to bed reaching for him every night. The house in Brooklyn Heights held too many memories and ghosts, yet I didn't want to leave for fear I would lose his memory and the sweetness of what we'd had.
In the back of my heart and soul I wondered if what I'd had with Josh was real and authentic. I was losing memories from our life together yet I could still remember every detail of each time I'd been with Rodney. What did that mean?
Lilly and I labored over our decision to sell the house in Brooklyn Heights and we had a number of soul-searching, heart-to-heart talks. We'd decide we could never leave because it would be like leaving Josh behind, then we'd decide the only way to move on with our lives would be to sell the house.
Joe came over for dinner one night and we told him about our dilemma, how we felt one way, then another. He understood, having lost Emalene, and said that moving on was the best way, because staying mired in the past would cripple us.
In the end, we sold the house and kept the Manhattan apartment. I hired a decorator to furnish the apartment with things Lilly and I loved—our beds from Brooklyn Heights, the overstuffed chair from her bedroom, the sectional sofa from our den. We put Emalene's old dining room table in the kitchen and our designer, Amy, added lots of new things. She changed the drapes and brought in pillows and comforters and all sorts of beautiful things that made Lilly and me happy and comfortable. We kept enough things from the past so that we were still attached in a small way, but brought in new things that told us, subliminally, that we had a future.
Decorating the condominium was therapeutic, but it was complicated by our travel schedule for the book tour, which began on the first of July.
We flew to Baton Rouge and drove to Jean Ville. We had four days in our little house on Gravier Road and spent that time visiting with Marianne, Tootsie, and the cousins in the Quarters. I went to see my dad twice and had long, wine-laced chats with Sissy.
*
The book launch took place at the Toussaint Parish Library where I donated ten copies of the book, one for each of the branches in the small towns in the parish. Sissy came to the launch and brought Daddy with her, which was a bit tense since Tootsie and Marianne were there, along with Sam, Tom, Jesse, and their families to whom I'd dedicated the book. I credited them with providing me with information and stories to fill in the gaps after Catfish died and presented Tootsie with an autographed, hardback version of the book.
I saw Daddy say something to Sissy as I was reading from one of the chapters and they disappeared through the door and onto the street. Later, Sissy came over to my house and said Daddy was offended that I didn't recognize him and, instead, gave all the credit for my success to a colored family.
"Not just any colored family, Sissy. Tootsie raised us! And she and Daddy…" I was angry and hurt that Daddy felt that way. After all, the book was about Catfish and his family, not about the Burtons.
"Don't get mad at me. I'm just the messenger." She hugged me, and we laughed because Sissy could make me laugh at my own insanity.
The day after the book launch, Lilly and I drove to New Orleans where we met two Shilling representatives, Billy and Cynthia, at the airport and drove to a local bookstore for another book reading and signing. From there we were off to Jackson, Mississippi; Mobile, Alabama; and Jacksonville, Florida. Every two days there was an event, followed by a day of travel, checking into a hotel, getting some rest, and meetings. Lilly became a vital part of our four-person team and helped with handouts and book supplies at the events.
We left Jacksonville on a Friday morning and drove to Charleston, South Carolina, arriving at a hotel on King Street early in the afternoon. We checked in, put our luggage in the rooms and walked to Harvey's, the bookstore downtown where the event would be held the next evening. We went to dinner and returned to the hotel.
I thought I recognized a tall man who was talking with the concierge at the hotel desk when I walked by, but Lilly was talking to me and I ignored my original impulse to speak with him. The next evening, as I stood at the microphone and read one of the stories from the book, I noticed the same man walk in through the glass doors and take a seat in the back of the room. There were fifty or sixty people in a deep room so I couldn't make out the face, but something about his presence, his swagger, his demeanor made me pause. I kept reading and tried not to stare at him.
After the readings, people queued up in front of a table where I sat signing books. As each person got to the front of the line I'd look up and ask their name, then write a short dedication, sign my name and date it. It was a long evening, and by the time the last person finally got to the table I didn't look up.
"Your name?" I took a book from Billy and opened it to the title page and started to write.
"Rodney." His voice was the same as ever—throaty and full, and I could smell his familiar scent of Ivory soap and starch and mint, orange, and lilac. My hand froze with the pen in it and I looked up slowly. A wide smile spread across his face and his eyes lit up, green with amber specks. "Rodney Thibault."
I dropped my pen and stared at him. The book slammed shut over my hand but I didn't feel it. Then my impulse was to look for Lilly and hide her. She was in the back of the room helping Cynthia pack books and flyers. Billy was standing next to me and I could feel his chagrin, waiting for me to sign the last book so we could leave and have dinner.
I stood up, and Rodney and I were eye-to-eye, the table between us. I was so nervous that he'd see Lilly, afraid of what would happen if they met each other, here, in public.
"Can you give me a phone number and I'll call you later?" I whispered across the table. He bent down and took the pen I'd dropped and wrote a number on one of the flyers.
"Will you sign the book for me?" He left the flyer on the table and stood up straight. I sat down and scribbled a note, his name and mine on the title page, and when I looked at it I realized what I'd written and blushed. He took the book and walked to the register while I sat stuck in my chair, unable to move.
I didn't call him.
We left the next day for Raleigh, then Virginia Beach, where I put Cynthia and Billy on a plane to New York and Lilly and I started the long drive back to Jean Ville. We had two weeks to recover, then we would fly back to New York for several events in the city and a review with the folks at Shilling about book sales.
My heart was still beating extra fast from the encounter with Rodney. I thought a lot about what to tell Lilly, because meeting him was bound to happen again.