Céline in New York, Christmas Eve 2013
MY MOTHER WAITED UNTIL I was thirty to tell me about Grandmother Ondine and Picasso. It was Christmas Eve, and I’d just flown in from Los Angeles to spend the holiday with her at her house in Westchester—one of those venerable old colonials with large, elegant windows, bordered by carefully pruned shrubbery and situated on a spacious, neat lawn dotted with ancient oak and maple trees.
It was snowing lightly when my taxi dropped me at the driveway. Mom must have been watching from a window, because the front door opened before I even got near it, and she came down the walkway without a coat over her cherry-red wool dress. She always dressed impeccably in finely made suits or dresses, pretty silk scarves and subtle, discreet jewelry; and her skin appeared youthfully radiant.
I instantly admired how good she looked and how she single-handedly maintained a modest, genuine spirit of joie de vivre. Yet the sight of her small figure and bright face coming down the walkway also evoked a protective instinct I’ve often had for her, almost as if she were the child and I her guardian. For, although Mom possessed French good taste, she wasn’t haughty about it; she had a shy, meek demeanor, due to some mysterious trauma from her childhood which she once alluded to but refused to fully explain, saying only, “Grandmother Ondine and I went through some bad times before I got married. But one must take the bitter with the better.” I could never get her to say anything more.
Today though, Mom was especially happy and animated. “Céline, you made it! How lovely you look with your California suntan!” she exclaimed approvingly, kissing me on first one cheek, then the other. I stooped to meet her halfway, because I was so much taller. Her eyes were dark while mine were blue; in fact all I inherited from her was her auburn-colored hair—I wore mine in a waist-length braid, while hers was cut chic and short. I liked the familiar scent of her face powder; the warmth of her soft cheeks. As we hugged, her tiny frame felt a little more delicate now, for she was in her mid-seventies.
I took off my coat and threw it around her shoulders as she said, “Oh, look at the snow! Now we’ll have a white Christmas, isn’t that nice? It’s like powdered sugar on everything. Come in, chérie, let’s get you some chocolat chaud!” Although she cooked like the Frenchwoman she was, Mom felt immensely proud of being what she considered a modern American homemaker typique. I was actually born in France, but my parents immediately whisked me off to New York so I’d have a thoroughly American childhood.
“Hello, Julie! Merry Christmas,” called out a new neighbor from across the road, who’d just come down her own driveway to collect her mail, and perhaps to look me over, because we hadn’t met.
“Merry Christmas!” Mom said, then added with pride, “This is my daughter, Céline. I told you about her—she’s a makeup artist in Hollywood. This year she was nominated for an Oscar award!”
“My team was nominated, Mom,” I muttered, embarrassed.
“Ah, at last I get to meet Céline, ‘the missing link’!” the woman said, bustling across the street.
I supposed I’d been called worse. All my life I was known as the “accident”, a child conceived late when nobody expected it. My mother was thrilled though, because I was her only child after two miscarriages. I had older step-siblings, Danny and Deirdre, twins from my father’s first marriage. Sandy-haired and freckled, they were dead ringers for Dad. Because they were older and very mysterious as only twins can be, I worshipped them wistfully as a kid, but they viewed me as a “Frenchie” like Mom.
“How’s Arthur?” the neighbor asked, and she and Mom nattered on a bit about Dad’s surgery. Since I’d just been on an airplane for six hours, all I wanted to do was go inside and unwind, not stand here in cold weather that my blood wasn’t used to. When my mother tried to give me back my coat, I dug into my carry-on bag for a wool jacket instead, then I waited as patiently as I could until Mom was finally able to make her excuses, and at last we went into the warm house all aglow with holiday lights.
“Mmm, it smells like Christmas in here,” I said as we entered, enjoying the mingled scents of nutmeg, orange, cloves, French mulled wine, and desserts baked with sweet European butter.
Mom’s place was always perfectly neat in a way that I knew my apartment would never be. For the holidays, the rooms were decorated with pine branches and maroon-and-gold ribbon; the parlor had a big tree winking with lights and baubels and wrapped gifts shining beneath it; and, in her large, beautiful kitchen, almost every table and countertop was laden with home-baked desserts.
“You made Les Treize Desserts de Noël!” I exclaimed, thrilled at the charming sight of this ancient, traditional series of Provençal home-baked sweets. Delighted by my enthusiasm, Mom proudly gave me a tour of the Thirteen Desserts of Christmas. Here was the dish of dried fruits and nuts called the “Four Beggars” to represent the four orders of monks; then a sweet, brioche-like cake made with orange flower water and olive oil; various meringue and candied citrus and melon confections; two kinds of nougats with pistachio and almond; also the thin, waffle-like oreillettes, cookies dusted with powdered sugar like the snow sifting outside; and of course, the spectacular bûche de Noël—a Yule Log of rolled chocolate cake with a caramel cream filling, and dark chocolate frosting which had been scraped by a fork’s tines to make it resemble a hunter’s newly chopped log from the forest. There was even a tiny candy Santa Claus carrying a hunter’s axe poised atop this beautiful Yule Log.
“Wow, Mom, you must be exhausted!” I said, impulsively giving her a big hug of congratulations for her beautiful presentation. She purred with pleasure, stroking my cheek and then patting my back.
“Pas du tout,” she said modestly with an airy wave of her hand. And suddenly I realized what was different about Mom today; she possessed the calm, confident demeanor of someone who’d been home alone peacefully cooking all week while Dad was in the hospital recuperating. Even though she loved catering to him, I could see that not having Dad at home had somehow released her, making her both relaxed and buoyant; and it looked as if she’d been secretly enjoying her newfound independence.
“Leave your suitcase in the front hall, we’ll get you settled in later,” she said, eagerly taking my hand and leading me to the kitchen table. She sat me down there and then poured us some hot chocolate, which she’d timed perfectly for my arrival, along with a plate of fresh apricot butter biscuits.
“Mmm, so good,” I said, sipping gratefully. “Now it really tastes like Christmas.”
She’d been beaming with the instinctive physical delight that mothers have when their children are near, but now as Mom sat beside me, her expression became more sober. “Céline,” she began rather tentatively, “your father has healed from his prostate surgery, but the doctors are saying that he’s still got a lot of other serious health problems with his heart and his lungs. So this got him to thinking, and he decided that we ought to update our wills. There was so much paperwork to sign! You know I’m no good with such business and legal things. But thank heavens it’s all taken care of now.”
This conversation was highly unusual; my mother rarely talked about money. She left the family finances entirely up to Dad and his accountants. She shopped, she had credit cards of course, but as far as I knew, she’d never in her life had to balance a checkbook, pay a bill or do her taxes.
Now she took a deep breath. And then she lowered the boom. “Your brother has been helping Dad with all the complicated insurance paperwork, so they’ve put everything in trust to Danny, because he understands what Dad wants and can continue taking care of it all when your father isn’t around to do so anymore. Is that okay with you?” I detected a guilty tinge to her voice as she said all this in a rush, as if to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible.
Still, it took me a moment to grasp the significance of what she was saying. “Danny’s going to get all the money? Even what you inherited from your mom?” I said. She nodded with such a stricken look that I saw it had not been an easy thing for her to agree to, yet she hastily tried to reassure me.
“But Danny won’t keep the money all for himself. He’ll manage it for me and then when I’m gone, he’ll take care of all of you; it will be divided up equally. Daddy says men have more access to information for making better business and investment decisions. ‘Men trust men’, he says.”
My hot chocolate had gone cold right there in my cup. I’d stopped sipping it. “And what do you say, Mom?” I asked quietly. I knew that nobody else in the family was going to ask her this.
She looked relieved and grateful, as if I’d given her permission to voice her own opinion, and I found this painfully touching. “I thought all three of you should be in charge—with the trust split three ways. I told your father that,” she admitted. “But he kept saying, ‘Too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth.’ Deirdre says she’s fine with Danny being in charge, so I thought it must be all right, don’t you think?” she said pleadingly. Her self-doubt was so pitiful to see but I had to answer her truthfully.
“No, I don’t agree. Deirdre would say it’s fine; the twins are always thick as thieves.” In fact as a kid Danny had been a thief, utterly unrepentant when caught cheating in school or stealing from his own family. What bothered me most was the sneaky way he did it, skulking around the house; he just wasn’t the kind of boy you turned your back on. I never understood why Mom didn’t use a firmer hand with him. Nor could I let my father’s sexist excuse pass. “Dad’s living in the Dark Ages. These days there’s a whole world full of women who run companies, make investments, do everything!” I reminded her.
My mother got that look on her face—the one she wore whenever she wanted to dodge any conflict, large or small. “Oh, he’s always been a good husband and a good father, and you know he loves all of us!” she said hastily. “Don’t worry, the will says everything will be done fairly.”
“Let’s hope so, Mom,” I sighed. I didn’t want to add to her stress, and I couldn’t expect her to confront Dad now. She’d been thirty when she met my father—a tall, good-looking forty-year-old at the time, whose first wife had recently died of cancer, and he was dealing with a succession of nannies who’d all quit, saying that the twins were mean and “a pair of holy terrors”.
I’d heard this from Aunt Matilda, Dad’s younger sister, a retired art teacher whom he derisively called “the spinster”. Aunt Matilda said he was attracted to my mother because he wanted “an old-fashioned girl, fashioned from his own rib”.
But Mom described being courted by a man smitten with love-at-first-sight, and surely this was true; Dad never cheated on her or even flirted with other women, and he made certain that his wife lived the good life, always able to have whatever fine things she loved. He was a “killer” lawyer at a prestigious firm, who could also be charming, gregarious and even appear modest when the situation warranted it. Mom claimed that Dad was just like the hero of her favorite movie, The Sound of Music—a sort of Captain von Trapp whose stern, somewhat sinister-looking handsomeness masked the heart of a good man.
I always wanted to believe so, for when Dad was in a good mood he was affectionate to us all, scooping his special ice cream sundaes, flipping Saturday-morning pancakes, singing to us on long car drives, teaching us kids to play sports and games. He liked to tell jokes, and, among his adult friends he was considered the life of the party. People mistook his jocular act for the hallmark of a contented soul.
Only his family knew that Dad was not a happy man. His frequent outbursts of rage were our little secret, which we seldom discussed even among ourselves. My early attempts to engage Mom about why Dad was so angry were fairly fruitless, as she excused him by saying that his career was stressful, and this was true; his legal work for high-stakes clients involved skimming the risky edges of the law.
But recently Mom had confessed to me that, during a particularly volatile period, a doctor once told my father that he had “narcissistic tendencies” and suggested therapy. “What did Dad do?” I asked.
“He was furious. Then he went and found another doctor he liked better,” Mom demurred.
We all tried to coax Dad into a happier mood with things we knew had pleased him before—his favorite songs, or sports scores, or old movies. But every evening when he came home from work, no matter what wonderful steaming dish Mom set down in front of us, our appetites died as my father, his face already thunderous, took his seat at the head of the table, searching for any inkling of failure or disloyalty in order to find a scapegoat. Then he’d explode with the pent-up fury we all dreaded.
The twins learned to deflect this by flattering Dad, pretending to be exact little replicas of him. But I watched in dismay as Mom absorbed his ridicule with a meekness that even as a child, I could see only reinforced his contemptuous attitude, which extended to whatever female friends she tried to socialize with, making it uncomfortable for her to invite any of them to her home.
And there was a joke I learned to hate which he often repeated at her expense. It was about an incident at a New Year’s Eve gala when she was standing in an impossibly long line for a ladies’ room. I never heard the end of the joke; all he had to do was to start to tell it, and my mother would get so embarrassed that she’d beg him to stop. He’d keep going, and even as her eyes filled with tears he’d continue, until finally stopping short of the “punch line” by telling her, Julie, you’re just too sensitive.
As the youngest in the family witnessing all this, I’d hoped my elder siblings would stand up to him; but Dad’s rage was like an oncoming tank which most people instinctively ducked away from. Yet he was the sort of forceful man who didn’t respect “wimps” and you couldn’t miss his smirk of disdain for people he could cow. Someone had to stare down his guns for Mom’s sake. When nobody did, the sight of her defeated, slumped shoulders and tearful face became so intolerable that I had to speak up. Although Dad enjoyed some preliminary sparring, he could not bear to lose an argument. And that’s why, when his shouting failed him, I was the one he hit. A whack across the face or back; a shove; a rough painful twisting of my arm or wrist—right there at the table, while the others averted their gaze.
When Dad’s rage was finally spent, Mom would be off the hook. At this point he usually looked bewildered, as if he could not fathom why the rest of us found his behavior so shocking that afterwards we all pretended nothing had happened; until the next time. It was always worse when the twins were away at school, leaving Mom and me alone with him. I’ve never admitted this to anyone, but in a way it was my father who unwittingly helped me find my calling in life—by inspiring me to become a teenage makeup expert in order to learn how to cover up the bruises I got from him.
I left home as soon as I could free myself from his financial support, fleeing to the Yale School of Drama through tuition loans and a scholarship for a theatre degree in production design. When I couldn’t find work in the theatre right away, I spent a summer assisting a top makeup man in Hollywood, and I realized I was much happier playing with pots and tubes of cosmetics. Ever since then I’ve been in business for myself in Los Angeles. There in Lotus Land, among possibly the most neurotic people on earth, I felt that I’d found a more understanding family.
MY MOTHER WAS patting my hand now. “Any new men in your life?” she asked hopefully. I shook my head, careful to appear serene about my current circumstances. She knew of my broken engagement, and probably understood, on some level, why I’d backed out of marrying a perfectly nice stockbroker who could have given me children to dote on and a life of ease—because he was the sort of guy who had to be completely in charge of every aspect of his life, and I just couldn’t bring myself to entrust one man with my entire future, as my mother had done.
Perhaps because she did understand all too well, she reached out and stroked my hair with a soothingly fond gesture. Then, as if she’d suddenly figured out what she could do to brighten the situation, she rose to her feet and whispered conspiratorially, “Come, I want to show you something.”
Somewhat halfheartedly I followed her through the hallway to the laundry room at the back of the house, where she bent down to open a sliding door in a cupboard beneath the washer-and-dryer.
“I never noticed that cupboard before,” I said. “What’s it for?”
“It’s just a crawl space, in case any wiring or plumbing has to be fixed or changed. But to me, it’s better than a vault!” She chuckled to herself. “Oh, I guess I’m just like my mother, after all. Your Grand-mère Ondine was always so worried whenever she heard about yet another burglary on the Riviera. She did have her little hiding places for her valuables—and I remember a secret storage area under a closet floor, where during the wars her parents hid the café’s best champagne from the German soldiers.”
She leaned in to retrieve a parcel sealed in a plastic bag, then rose to her feet, clutching it to her chest like a naughty little wide-eyed girl with a secret.
“Let’s go back to the kitchen where the light is good,” she suggested. We returned and I watched, mystified, as Mom opened the plastic bag to remove something wrapped in blue-and-silver Christmas paper, which she now deposited into my lap. “I want you to open this Christmas gift early this year—because it really came from your grandmother, not me,” she said quietly. Her eyes were bright with excitement. I tore open the wrapper, half-expecting to see some family jewels. Instead, I discovered a maroon leather-bound notebook, shaped like a ledger.
“This belonged to your Grandmother Ondine. She gave it to me the day that you were born. It’s a kind of cookbook she wrote herself, with all her best recipes!” Mom announced.
“It’s lovely,” I replied, baffled. I absolutely hated cooking, and my mother knew it. Every Frenchwoman, no matter how wealthy, believes that she should periodically cook for her family to prove that she excels at this domestic art. Mom was a generous and gifted chef, yet my father and siblings were indifferent to food and treated her like hired help. So I guess that’s why I’d always steered clear of kitchen work. It occurred to me now that my mother was offering this gift as a gentle hint that I should learn to cook and thus become a more traditional female, as a path to happiness.
“At least I can give you this—for an heirloom,” Mom said apologetically, noticing my hesitation.
Considering everything she’d told me this evening, the whole thing felt like just another kick in the pants, not a gift. A consolation prize, perhaps. But when I saw the hopeful look on her face I kissed her. This treasure obviously meant a lot to her, and I did like the feel of the notebook’s buttery soft leather cover. Curious, I turned to the first page, which had a printed box decorated with a border of grapevines, and inside it, at the Date line, was a scripted flourish in blue ink saying Spring, 1936.
“This is Grandmother Ondine’s handwriting?” I asked, studying it closely. On the line for the Nom, she’d only written a letter P. “Who’s ‘P’?” I said, pointing to it. Mom hesitated, and a strange, conflicted look crossed her face. Then, visibly, she made up her mind and took the plunge.
“Oh. Picasso,” she said in a low voice.
“Picasso! Really?” I asked, taken aback. Mom nodded, and she went on to explain how Grandmother Ondine, at age seventeen, had transported lunch from her parents’ café to Picasso’s villa.
“Amazing!” I responded, actually feeling goosebumps imagining the scene as I flipped through the recipes, all handwritten in French. Bouillabaisse and coq au vin and beef miroton and lamb rissole. “What else did she tell you about Picasso?” I asked, feeling all the more intrigued now.
“Nothing,” Mom admitted. “She just gave me this book as a keepsake and told me to pass it on to you when you were old enough.” She turned to the back of the notebook where, in a leather pocket for storing mementos, Mom had tucked an envelope that was already slit open. I saw that it was posted in 1983 from Juan-les-Pins, France.
“Here’s a letter that Grandmother Ondine wrote to me,” she explained. “On old stationery from when her parents ran the café. She kept this stationery for her own personal use years later, when she grew up and took over the café after her parents died.”
Fascinated, I saw that the folded sheet of delicate white paper, deeply creased from being tucked into that envelope for so long, had an appealing black-and-grey drawing of the café professionally printed at the top of the page. The words Café Paradis were on the awning of its picturesque terrace.
“And here’s a photo of Grandma in the kitchen of her café,” Mom said, passing me a snapshot. It was a cozy moment and I noticed that Mom had used the American word Grandma this time. “Isn’t her hair wonderful? It never went completely grey—it stayed mostly dark, right to the end of her life.”
She put the picture in front of me and I peered closely at the first image I’d ever seen of Grandmother Ondine—a woman wearing a rose-colored dress, whose hair was very different from Mom’s and mine, darker and luxuriously curly. I was immediately captivated by her vital-looking face and bright, lively eyes. She seemed like a strong, no-nonsense character.
“Grandma looks formidable,” I said, surprised. Mom was so shy that I never imagined I had a female ancestor who ran her own business in a century when women were still struggling mightily for equal rights. Grandmother Ondine was standing in an old-fashioned kitchen; behind her was a Provençal country cupboard painted bright blue, with a tall pink-and-blue striped pitcher on it.
“Hey!” I said. “Isn’t that the same pitcher you’ve got in your kitchen?” I glanced up at the shelf where it was sitting right now, always in pride of place for as long as I could remember.
“Hmm? Yes,” Mom answered, still scanning the letter. “Your grandmother was sixty-four years old when she wrote this! She says business is good and she’s got a nice young lawyer, Monsieur Clément, who’s helping her put her affairs in order. But I got worried when I read this part about Grandma needing to see a doctor for ‘some heart trouble’, and having to use a cane to walk. That’s when I decided I had to go see her in France, even though I was pregnant with you. Deirdre and Danny didn’t come with us because they wanted to be with their friends that summer.”
Very soberly, she replaced the note in its envelope and tucked it in the leather pocket. “I’ve kept it all these years because it’s the only letter she ever sent me. Before then, we were a bit—estranged—ever since I left France to get married. She had wanted me to—wait.”
“You and Dad eloped, right?” I said. Mom nodded guiltily. She’d always made it sound so romantic, as if Dad had swept her off her feet. Now I saw there was more to it; perhaps a serious rift with her mother. Gently I asked, “How come you never told us about Grandma Ondine and Picasso?”
Mom flushed and admitted, “She made me promise never to say his name to—” She stopped.
“Dad,” I guessed. She nodded. I knew he resented Mom’s few stories about her life before she met him; so whenever Mom ventured to tell one she did so hurriedly, in the manner of someone who’s been chided that she’s not very good at it, which evoked the very irritation in her audience that she dreaded. I am ashamed to think that we all got used to only half-listening to her.
Now she actually lowered her voice, even though we were the only two people in the house.
“There’s something else I find myself thinking about a lot lately. That last day—when Grandma Ondine and I were sitting together, having a nice chat just before dinner, like you and I are doing right now—she said she had to tell me something she didn’t want anyone else to hear.” By now I was holding my breath, waiting. Mom said wonderingly, “Grandma told me that Picasso once gave her a picture.”
“Picture?” I said, awed. “Like, a painting? Or drawing?”
“A painting, I believe. She said he gave it to her as a gift for all her good cooking. I think she wanted to tell me more—but she never finished her story because right then and there I went into labor! They had to rush me to the hospital, and, well, we never had dinner that day! You certainly surprised us all, arriving a whole month sooner than you were due,” Mom went on breathlessly, lapsing into the only part of the story I knew, because it explained why I’d been born in France. So I knew what was coming.
“That’s the same day Grandma Ondine had a heart attack, right?” I said softly. As a child I’d felt slightly guilty about it, as if I’d somehow inadvertently caused her death. Later, in my more mystical teenage years, I told myself that my grandmother had somehow passed the baton to me that day. So now, holding on to this elegant, leather-bound book, I felt that “baton” in my hands for the first time.
“Yes. It happened when I was at the hospital. A neighbor looked in on Grandma and called the doctor. She died at home that day—the doctor said she went quickly and didn’t suffer.”
We both fell silent. Mom’s face was puckered with regret as she said sadly, “They kept me in the hospital for weeks because I was anemic and caught bronchitis. So your father had to deal with Grandmother Ondine’s lawyer for me, to settle the estate. Grandma had everything in order, just the way she wanted it. Most of it was already in trust to me. Her French lawyer knew just what to do, and, while I was recovering, he handled the sale of her property. Everything was happening so fast. And I had you to care for!” I reached out and took her hand, and she squeezed mine in response.
After I absorbed this, I asked, “But—what about the Picasso painting?” She shook her head.
“I never saw it! And because Grandma made me swear that day never to tell your father about it, all I could do when I got out of the hospital was to ask the lawyer if he’d found any artwork,” Mom explained, looking stymied even now. “He said he emptied every piece of furniture before he sold it, and there was nothing—no art, no safe-deposit key, no receipts or bill of sale; so he believed that if she had a painting she must have sold it quite some time ago.”
“Maybe the lawyer stole the picture,” I couldn’t help saying.
Mom smiled and shook her head. “No, he was a nice young man, a good man.”
“Could Dad have found it?” I asked. We looked at each other, both perfectly aware that my father seldom resisted a good opportunity to show off. “It’s not the kind of secret he could have kept,” I concluded, and Mom allowed herself a smile of agreement.
Hesitantly she added, “So, I just assumed that Grandma must have already sold the Picasso and was trying to tell me about the money, which would explain why she had quite a bit to leave me.”
Our solitary moment was suddenly broken by the sound of a car pulling into the driveway.
We glanced out the window. “It’s your father. In Danny’s car,” Mom said, in a complete change of tone, hurriedly rising. “And there’s Deirdre and her family in the car right behind them, back from shopping. The twins were so determined to get Daddy released from the hospital in time for Christmas!” she said, automatically putting on her happy face. I felt a familiar pang of sympathy for her, seeing how hard she was trying to please everyone. Instinctively I stayed close to her as we rose to meet them.
I heard several car doors slam, and I saw from the window that the twins, now in their late forties, still looked to me just as they had when they were kids—lanky, sandy-haired, freckled, with that unspoken conspiratorial air between them—except now they were stretched into grown-ups, with children of their own. I had the same thought I always do at the holidays, which was, Maybe now we can finally be a happy, harmonious family. But this wish faded as my father got out of Danny’s car, appearing a little more bent and grey-haired these days. As usual Dad’s face looked like thunder. Something was already pissing him off.
“Please take this now,” Mom said urgently, handing me back Grandmother Ondine’s notebook. “Put it in your suitcase before everybody comes inside—and don’t tell them that I gave it to you. After all, it’s what Grandma Ondine asked me to do. But we don’t want Deirdre to feel jealous.”
I dutifully went and zipped up the notebook in my bag. When I returned to the kitchen, the twins and their kids were milling around, carelessly wolfing down Mom’s specially prepared desserts despite her mild protests that these were supposed to be served after dinner. We all kissed and hugged, and I admired how quickly the children were growing up, yet they were still touchingly eager to be approved of by their Aunt Céline who lived in Los Angeles and knew movie stars.
Deirdre was in the parlor checking out the wrapped gifts under the tree, but now she came into the kitchen to look me over. Danny informed her, “Céline’s been home with Mom all afternoon.”
I watched him exchange a significant look with his twin in the telegraphic way they’d done since childhood. “Oh? What have you been doing all this time, Céline?” Deirdre asked. The sharpness of her tone surprised me. Mom glanced up at me nervously, which made me think that perhaps the twins were trying to gauge if she’d blurted out the recent “updating of the wills” to me. Apparently she wasn’t supposed to tell me. If my father discovered she had, he’d be mightily displeased.
“Mom’s been showing me some French recipes,” I said truthfully enough, nodding at the Christmas treats. Mom was busy settling Dad into his favorite chair in the parlor, fluttering solicitously around him, seeing that he was snappish and irritable. He hated being an invalid. I noticed with concern that Dad still looked pale. Then he glanced at me appraisingly, and out of habit I felt my guts freeze.
“Still fooling around with powder puffs and lipstick out in Hollywood?” he asked.
Mom smiled proudly. “Céline was nominated for an Oscar this year, for the best makeup category—I told you that, remember?” she said encouragingly, nudging my father.
“My team and I,” I said. “I worked with a guy who’s been in the business for ages.”
Danny said quickly, “But you didn’t actually win the Oscar. Right?”
“Champagne, everyone!” my mother said brightly.
JUST BEFORE NEW Year’s, Dad had to go back into the hospital. I sat with him in his room while he was waiting to be wheeled into surgery again, and he was unexpectedly warm and friendly. He even allowed me to hold his hand awhile as we chatted about a safe topic of mutual interest—old Hollywood movies. In retrospect, I think he was scared, though he wouldn’t admit it. The surgery went well, and the doctors thought his outlook was good. But later that night, his body was ultimately unable to withstand the shock of another operation. He died before dawn, before we could get back in time to say goodbye.
When I went to his hospital room to collect his things, I burst into tears at the sight of his empty bed, and his leather shaving kit that held his comb, toothbrush and razor. Despite everything, Dad had been such a brooding, dominant presence that permanent absence seemed impossible. Now all I could think was, Where did he go? I felt a sudden, deep sorrow for his lonely soul, which I pictured floating on a raft, drifting farther and farther away into a blackened sea, because he used to scare us on our summer vacations by swimming very far out, to show off, waving back at us and enjoying our consternation.
My mother had, I think, been bracing herself for this for some time, because she seemed calm and resigned at the funeral. Deirdre went on one of her terrifying “organizing” binges, packing up Dad’s clothes and things so Mom wouldn’t have to face it. Friends and neighbors swarmed around my mother, clasping her hands in theirs, murmuring their condolences, so I didn’t have much time alone with her.
I had to leave right after New Year’s for a movie assignment in Germany, but just before I left I told her I could stop back here in springtime to visit her again on my way home, and I asked if she’d be okay in the house alone until then, adding encouragingly, “Mom, I know it might be scary at first, but being on your own gives you a chance to think about what things you like to do and how you like to live.”
She nodded, brightening. “Yes. I’ll be fine. Deirdre invited me to spend a few weeks in Nevada with her, to get away from all this cold weather. So, go do your work, and I’ll see you here when you come back and we’ll do nice things together.” She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching before she pressed a new key into my hand. “Dad had the locks changed last month,” she murmured.
“See you soon,” I promised. She remained standing there at the front door, blowing kisses as I waved goodbye from the cab.
MY NIGHT FLIGHT to Germany was quiet, because I’d been booked into the business-class section where most passengers were trying to sleep. The communal hush was soothing. And as we were crossing over the Atlantic Ocean in that inky darkness, I found myself drowsily wondering what had really happened to my Grandmother Ondine, that year when she and Picasso crossed paths.