For my thirty-seventh birthday, Ed bought me a butterfly pendant from Tiffany’s. I collected butterfly things. The necklace was special. Besides being beautiful, it rested over my heart and reminded me of the butterfly’s capacity for transformation and freedom. It was my totem.
Soon after, Dallas was to start filming. From the start, the Dallas job was logistically complicated. The producers informed the cast that we’d start filming in the city of Dallas in January—two weeks hence—and would stay until March. The actors would be put up in a motel. It was Ed’s worst nightmare, what he’d expressly feared about my acting career, that one day, it would take me away from him. The kids and I hadn’t been apart for even two weeks. Now we’d be separated for two months? They were at a tricky age, eleven and thirteen, when things were starting to happen for them hormonally. They needed their mother.
We had a family discussion about it. The kids said they’d be okay, but how could they comprehend how their lives would fall apart unless I was there to organize and facilitate? Ed was adamantly opposed to my leaving for “some job.” He didn’t order me to stay—not that that would have worked—but he campaigned hard to get me not to do the show.
With only two weeks to prepare, I threw myself into getting things done. I created a master list of a hundred items (“call the gardener,” “arrange car pool,” “wrap and send birthday gifts,” “call the teachers”). I’d never get it all done, but in a week, I’d baked and stored sixty Crock-Pot casseroles in the freezer, including this one (it’s a wonder my kids still talk to me):