Dec. 26, 1967
Dear Family,
My apologies for mimeographing this letter to stick in your card, but please consider it a very personal Merry Christmas anyway, from me and Sandy and ANDREW BIRD COPELAND who is six months old at this time, almost completely bald but the cutest baby in the whole world according to his proud parents MR. AND MRS. SANDY COPELAND of #20 Greenacres Park, Raleigh, N.C., where we have now moved as Sandy says there is more opportunity here in the building trades.
Greenacres Park is actually a trailer park, and we are living in a rented trailer which would not have been my first choice, as it is aqua, but it is very reasonable since everything is furnished—wall-to-wall carpet (yuck—more aqua!), blinds and drapes at the windows, a built-in bar and stools in the little kitchen, etc. All this is lucky for us since we have started our housekeeping on a shoestring, you might say. Of course, the size of this trailer is a little bit small for Sandy (who is 6′3″, after all!). He has to walk around hunched over all the time. But he works so much that he is not home a lot, so it is okay, and will suit us fine until we can afford to move to another place. Actually this trailer reminds me of a dollhouse—remember when I “took care of the dolls” for Daddy? I was so proud of myself. The big difference is, this little doll is real!
I wonder if everybody is so crazy about their first baby, and so worried about him. Even though Andy is sleeping through the night now, I still wake up every three hours and can’t go back to sleep until I have tiptoed over to his crib just to see if he is still breathing, and I’m happy to report that so far, he is! And one nice thing about the size of a trailer is that I can check on Andy constantly. We are never far apart in here!
When Sandy comes home from work in the evenings, he always asks me what I’ve been doing all day, and honestly I don’t know how to answer this question. “I can’t exactly remember,” I tell him, “but whatever it was, it just wore me out!”
The truth is that with a baby, the time flies. Of course I can remember how, as a teenager in the not-so-distant past, I used to get so bored. Sundays, for instance, just dragged on and on. . . . I truly did have “time on my hands” and never even knew it until now, when I don’t have any! Who was that girl who used to “moon around” (Mama’s word for it!) and read so much? I feel like she was somebody else, not me, not this new me who always has something to do. Fold the diapers, feed the baby, burp the baby, put him down, peel the potatoes, pick the baby up and change him, put him in the playpen, put the water on to boil, wash off his pacifier which he has thrown down in the floor, put the potatoes in the boiling water, cut up the chicken, find the pacifier again, wash it off, etc. I won’t go on and on, but you can get the general idea!
It is a major expedition whenever we go out, such as to the grocery store or to the laundromat or the library or the little playground behind the Episcopal Church up the street (St. Michael’s). Or we might go to visit Susan Blankenship in #11, who has just had a baby girl named Melanie, or Marybeth Green in #45, whose John is actually three months older than Andrew, though of course Andrew is much more advanced and smarter. Andrew really enjoys visiting John. They are so cute—they love to play side by side, though they are not old enough to play together yet. This is called “parallel play”—I keep checking out all those books on child development. Sandy teases me about it, but I am just so terrified that I will make a mistake. Some mistakes are irrevocable, a thing I never really realized until I had a baby of my own. This thought scares me to death. I feel like everything I have ever done before means nothing, in comparison to taking care of this baby.
Sandy comes from a family of seven, so he thinks I worry too much. For instance Sandy believes in letting a baby cry, that this develops his lungs, but I can’t stand it, snatching Andrew up the very minute he opens his mouth. And let me tell you, his lungs are developing just fine anyway, thank you very much! Sandy tells me all the time that I am spoiling “that baby” but actually he is just crazy about him too, and calls him “Duke.” (I’m not sure where he got that name!) “Hey, Duke,” Sandy will say, and kind of box with him. They both get the biggest kick out of this little game.
So I want everybody out there to know that I am fine, happy as can be in this little aqua blue shoebox of a home with my baby Andrew. We are so busy in here that it is very difficult right now for me to even imagine any other world outside these four walls.
I watch Vietnam on television of course, and often think of you, Joe, but honestly it is hard for me to concentrate too long or to believe that the war is actually real and not just another show on television. I know that’s awful, but it’s true. Somehow I believe it would seem more real to me if it wasn’t on television all the time. Honestly, my imagination has failed me on this. I’m so glad you will be home soon.
But Joe, I do wish you would write, at least to me. I’m sure you are hearing this from all of us, so do it! Make copies and send one to everybody, like I am doing here. I’m sure the Army has got a mimeograph machine someplace! By the way, it is hard for me to believe you scarcely know Sandy yet. Somehow I think that all the people I love, love each other as much as I love them, and I forget that you all have hardly met.
Well, I will quit running on and on and tell you now about Sandy’s and my first Christmas dinner together (yesterday). It was a riot! We had a baked hen which barely fit in my oven (I am trying, Mama!) and oyster casserole which did not work out because I used smoked oysters instead of the real other kind which I guess you are supposed to use. (I had bought these flat square little cans of oysters at the Piggly Wiggly, they were very expensive and blew my whole food budget for the week, but I thought you had to have oyster casserole on Christmas, Mama. I thought it was the law!)
Well, it looked okay, the cracker crumbs having formed a nice golden crust just the way they are supposed to, but the minute I bit into it, I knew something was the matter. But Sandy did not even know the difference because he had never tasted oysters before anyway. Luckily, Sandy will eat anything, and he thought it was delicious! We ate Christmas dinner on the floor—on our aqua shag carpet, that is! — since we don’t have a table yet (though Sandy is going to build us one soon, he can build anything, if he can get off from work long enough to do it) while Andrew slept on his blanket right beside us. And when we got up to do the dishes, we saw it had started to snow! So we bundled poor little sleepy Andrew up in that red snowsuit you sent, Mama, and took him out in his first snowfall ever, which was coming down so thick and fast at first that we couldn’t even see beyond our little row of trailers, to the street.
The streetlight made a perfect cone of light, full of whirling flakes, as we stood beneath it and stuck our tongues out to catch the flakes and tried to make Andrew stick his tongue out, too. How sweet and cold those snowflakes were, melting on our tongues, I will never forget it.
And then before we knew it, everybody from the other trailers had come out too, and we met neighbors we had never even seen before! such as a crazy old lady named Miss Pike, who wears the most makeup you have ever seen and used to teach singing lessons, opera I believe, and a fat little man named Leonard Dodd who described himself as an “inventor” (though I don’t know what he invents), and another man named Gerald Ruffin who looked very aristocratic, but wore a plaid robe and red velvet bedroom shoes and was drunk as a lord. Somebody whispered that he used to be a lawyer but had fallen on hard times. He was in politics, too. He is from one of the most prominent families in the state. I guess he must be the black sheep of that family! We all talked about the snow, and passed around some of the fudge you sent, Mama, and then the Teeter sisters had us in for coffee. You have never seen as much junk as they have squeezed into their trailer—they call it “brick-a-brack.” It covers every surface that is not already covered by a doily. All their coffee cups were made of flowery bone china, with gold rims. Gerald Ruffin’s hands were shaking so much that his cup rattled on his saucer like a castanet. Well, I could go on and on. . . . (No doubt this is the same impulse which used to lead me to write The Small Review!). Anyway, I don’t know whether it was that coffee or pure excitement, but I couldn’t sleep a wink all night long. I lay snuggled up to Sandy like a spoon in a drawer and listened to Andrew make his snuffly little sounds in sleep, and peeped out the porthole window at my portion of the sky, which was full of whirling flakes, no two alike in the universe, and thought about my baby, and my husband, and Daddy, and all of you, and my heart was full to bursting.
Merry Christmas and love from your very poor but very happy,
Mary Copeland
P.S. I will spare you my recipe for oyster casserole! Oh, I also made up a big batch of Sticks and Stones for Sandy to give his boss. They were a big hit. So if Sandy gets that raise he’s hoping for, it will be all thanks to me, his wife, MARY COPELAND!
Dec. 23, 1970
To My Dear Family and All Our Good Friends at Greenacres Park,
There’s so much going on and so many people I want to tell that I’m making Xerox copies of this letter.
I just can’t believe that this is the last Christmas we will spend here! In fact, this is the very last week we will spend here—we are scheduled to move into our new home at 1508 Rosemary Street on Dec. 29th.
Actually, our “new” house is old, having been built in the 1920s, but I just love it, with big square rooms and crown molding, a beautiful cherry wood banister going up to the second floor, and three fireplaces with fancy mantelpieces. I must admit it is in pretty bad shape at the present time, needing a lot of paint and some plumbing work, not to mention a new porch and a new kitchen, but since this is how we got it, I don’t mind. See, the landlord was advertising it as a “fixer-upper,” and since I am married to a “fixer-upper,” I answered the ad myself and struck a deal. A great deal, I might add! We will be living rent free in exchange for Sandy’s services, and the landlord is paying for materials, of course. So 1971 will find us all the way across town, it’s almost like being out in the country.
We will need the space, since (as most of you already know) I am pregnant with twins, can you believe it? They will be born in mid-February, I am hoping for Valentine’s Day. I thought I was getting awfully big, awfully fast, but I never, ever, thought of twins! until the doctor told us. (And now Mama says that actually she had little twin sisters herself, up in West Virginia, she just “forgot to mention” that they were twins. One of them died young and the other is our Aunt Margaret.) Anyway, twins do run in the family, for sure.
And so we will be getting a ready-made family real fast! We could never stay in this trailer after the twins are born—we just wouldn’t fit—but in a lot of ways, I hate to leave. We have been so happy here. Sandy says I am crazy, but I swear I will even miss all this AQUA—can you believe it?
Most especially I will miss all of you, and want to take this opportunity to say so. Miss Pike, thanks so much for keeping Andrew for me whenever I got into some kind of a bind, which you know I am prone to do! and for teaching him the little songs on the piano, that was very sweet. Ditto to the Teeter sisters, I am sorry about the teapot and the Japanese porcelain lady. Thanks to you, Mr. Dodd, for expanding my mind. (I will never forget what you told me about how you invent things: “First,” you said, “I imagine a need . . .”) GOOD LUCK, Mr. Dodd. Don’t forget to close your door and lock it when you go out, ditto your car when you park it, now what will you do without me?
Susan and Marybeth, let’s make a pledge that we will always stay in touch our whole lives long, and have reunions when we are old and rich and these little babies are taking care of us! I will never forget that heat wave last summer when the babies played in the plastic pool every day while we sat under the sprinkler in the shade to keep cool.
And what would I have ever done without you, Gerald Ruffin, and your insomnia which equals mine, especially during that same heat wave. . . . Oh, how many nights did we sit out on those lawn chairs talking the night away? while the bugs circled the light bulb and my nightgown stuck to my back in the awful heat! And even this fall, with the twins waking me up all night long kicking, I didn’t even mind so much, knowing you would be out there smoking, ready to keep me company. It has been a real education, Gerald Ruffin, and I thank you for it!
Speaking of education, I think it is great that you’re going to finish college early, Ruthie! We are all real proud of you, especially your nephew Andrew who calls you “Roofie” ever since he knocked out his front teeth. He looked exactly like a pumpkin at Halloween, it was the cutest thing, I wish you could have seen him! with that hair even redder than Sandy’s.
Joe, I have mailed a big thing of Sticks and Stones to you early, I thought you could share them with everybody else in the hospital. I sent you several other presents, too, I just hope they will arrive in time for Christmas. Let me know. Mama says she prays for you every day and I do too, my version of this being that I think about you every day, and all the games we used to play and all the things we did as children. I only hope my own children will enjoy each other as much as we did, and love each other as much as we did. Please write, Joe. One thing in your package is a writing tablet and a whole bunch of envelopes already stamped and addressed to me at our new house.
We look forward to Mama’s visit when the twins arrive. This will be especially good for Andrew, I’m sure, who is likely to get his nose out of joint because he has gotten all the attention around here for such a long time—close to four years now! Sandy said he would get him a dog to make up for it, but Andrew now says he wants a kitten. Well, Sandy is just not a cat person, plus he thinks everybody should have a dog, and he is real strongminded, so I don’t know what will happen. . . . Families! You wonder how any of us survive them, don’t you? But we do.
I just wish you could all see our funny little silver tree with its blinking lights this Christmas, surrounded by presents and packing boxes stacked to the ceiling all around, not to mention us crammed in here tight as a drum, with me just pushing this big stomach around. Actually Sandy bought this little artificial tree because he says they are a better bargain, and I wept that he had bought a silver one instead of green, but I must say it is pretty. Andrew stands in front of it by the hour, entranced by these blinking lights. This is a Christmas we will never forget, that’s for sure!
Love,
Andy, Sandy, Mary, and the
Twins-in-Waiting Copeland
P.S. I have finally convinced Mama to share her recipe for
1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained
2 bunches green onions
1 8-oz. bottle Catalina dressing
1 diced tomato
2 c. rotini noodles, cooked and drained
1 pkg. taco mix
Add taco mix and Catalina dressing to beef, mixing well. Add all other ingredients, mixing well. Serve over plenty of shredded lettuce, with taco chips on the side.
Merry Christmas from the Copelands, 1975!
(Especially to Susan and Marybeth, and all my good friends on Rosemary Street—I miss you so much already! Especially Elaine and Edie, remember all those crazy diets we tried? I guess I will just have to stay fat now.)
I write to you from our brand new home at 38 Hummingbird Heights, built by Copeland Construction of course! (Just like this Xeroxed letter also comes courtesy of Sandy’s company Xerox.) It is a split-level brick contemporary with four bedrooms and a big back yard with lots of room for the children to play. In fact our yard serves as the playground for the entire neighborhood, which is fine by me. I love to have company while watching the kids, and all the kids love to play on the huge wood-and-tire climbing thing which Sandy built for them. (Actually he designed it and then sent Randy and Tim over here to build it for us —thanks, Randy and Tim! It’s a big hit!)
The twins have turned out to be little tomboys—absolutely fearless—they scare me to death. This very minute, as I write, both Melanie and Claire are hanging upside down from the “monkey bars”—I can’t even look! Andrew is inside doing an art project for school. At 8½ he is already quite an artist. In Cub Scouts, he and Sandy made a Pine Box Derby race car which was a statewide winner, and Sandy claimed that he didn’t have a thing to do with it. He says it was Andy’s design entirely. All Andy’s teachers have remarked about his talent, I know he didn’t get it from me!
I didn’t even try to pick out paint colors or wallpaper for this house, for instance, I just left the whole thing up to Sandy, he has a much better eye than I do. I can’t even hang pictures on the wall, according to him! He says I hang them too high. So Sandy has done it all, and I must say, everything has gone much more smoothly as a result. And this house really does look great! In fact it looks so good, it often seems to me that it must be somebody else’s house. . . .
Oh, I guess I was just attached to that old “fixer-upper” on Rosemary Street, and to the trailer before that, if you can imagine! Sandy says I am “hopeless,” and I guess I am! It is a good thing that somebody in this family is so modern and forward-looking.
I remain very busy with “the here-and-now.” Little James is already learning to walk, and I can tell that he is going to be a holy terror before long. (I feel like every baby I have gets wilder and wilder—more active, at any rate. Especially as compared with Andrew, who was so good.. . .) But Sandy gets a kick out of James, saying that he is “all boy,” which is certainly true.
We took the whole family to Halfmoon Island for two weeks again this summer, and really enjoyed it, though Sandy left after a few days of course, he just had to get back on the job! (He is building 9 more houses here on Hummingbird Heights, all of them in the $75,000 range.) But Mama and Ruthie and I got to catch up on everything, and all the kids got along beautifully, they practically lived in the water. We had great weather the whole time.
After several job changes, Ruthie is now in the sportswear business in Atlanta, working as a “girl Friday” for a young entrepreneur named Jay Moretz who has started his own line of leisure wear which you may have seen in the stores, named “Saturdays.” Their logo is a little red sailboat, I know you have seen them.
When I asked Ruthie exactly what she does, she said she “makes Jay Moretz possible”! (In my own way, I could identify with that.) Anyway, Ruthie is just as crazy as ever, still a “firecracker,” as Daddy used to say, bless his heart.
We were having this conversation while sitting out at the beach under a pink striped umbrella on the prettiest day of the summer, all bright blue and yellow, a day to break your heart. (Now why did I say that? I sound just like Gerald Ruffin!) Anyway, the waves were rushing in and the sun was shining on them in a way that really did make them look like they were “dancing,” and the air was so clear, not that kind of haze you sometimes get in summer, but clear as glass, I felt like I could see all the way to England where I have always wanted to go. All my children were in view—the twins, running out and back endlessly, chased by the waves and then chasing them, squealing and squealing—James, asleep for once, on the blanket beside me in the umbrella’s pink shade—and Andrew alone up the beach a ways, poking in the sand with a stick and staring out at the horizon, thinking deep thoughts, which he is (probably unfortunately) prone to. Mama sat in a beach chair beside me while Ruthie lay stretched out flat in the sunshine a few feet away, covered with baby oil and iodine, wet cotton balls on her eyelids, tanning herself scientifically with the kitchen timer. She turned over every 20 minutes. Sandy had gone back up to the cottage to make a phone call but now he was coming back down the dune, kicking sand like a boy. From where I was, he looked like a boy, and Ruthie still looked like a teenager. I, by contrast, felt old, though I am not but 31, of course. The twins were squealing and squealing, the sun glinted off the waves, and for a moment I felt breathless, don’t you remember this, Mama? You asked me if I was all right. Then Sandy came and ducked back under the umbrella and sat down beside me and lit a cigarette and squeezed my knee and I really was all right again. It was only for a moment that I had thought, Oh Lord! Who are all these people?
Now I hope you will not think I am too crazy, reading that last paragraph, because I do love everybody so much, and I am so proud of Sandy—our life really is the American Dream come true! Of course Sandy works all the time while I am busy running after the kids and driving car-pools and keeping the books for Copeland Construction Company, but I must say I enjoy this job, as it is just me and Sandy up way late into the night sometimes, just the two of us, trying to make it all balance out . . . once we sent out for a pizza at 1 A.M.!
Also I am still teaching Sunday School at our church, following in Mama’s footsteps once again, I guess (just like the Christmas Letters), though now we have become Methodists (Sandy’s choice) instead of Church of Christ. The Methodist Church is right down the street from us here in Hummingbird Heights, so Sandy thought it would help us all get adjusted faster to our new lifestyle, and honestly, one church is as good as another as far as I’m concerned! The First Methodist Church has a very active MYF, so the kids will like it better anyway. The singing is not as good, I must say, but I love the prayers and responsive readings in the back of the Hymnal, which are just pure poetry in my opinion. That may not sound very religious, but it is true!
Anyway, as you can tell, life is full and good—maybe it is too full, but it is still good. We only regret that it did not work out for Joe at Copeland Construction, but we wish you good luck, Joe, in whatever field you decide to go into. This goes for everybody—here’s to a happy and productive 1976!
Lots of love to all of you
from all of us,
Sandy, Andrew, Claire,
Melanie, and James and
Mary Copeland
(Wow! What a mouthful!)
And speaking of “mouthfuls,” here’s an indispensable recipe from Cooks on the Run:
1 lb. sweet Italian sausage
1 lb. hot Italian sausage
A couple of peppers & onions
1 lb. pasta, any kind
1 large jar spaghetti sauce
Cut up sausages and sauté with vegetables. Add spaghetti sauce, heat through. Serve over pasta.
December 20, 1985
Merry Christmas! to Ruthie, Mama, and Close Friends Only,
Now that Copeland Construction is sending out those big metallic cards —I did not pick them out, in case you get one of those too! Back to the old carbon paper for this letter. I’ll try to type hard.
And let me say that it is a relief to sit down for a minute! I am surrounded by boxes as I write. This is getting to be an old story, isn’t it? I don’t know why we never seem to move in the summertime, it would be so much easier. But I have told Sandy, this is it! I plan to die in this house! You should have seen the way he looked at me when I said it. Then he just about died himself, laughing at me. Of course a man does not relate to a house the way a woman does —for Sandy, a house is something you build, not something you live in. And I’ll swear, he can’t even look at a piece of land (or a mountain, or a beach) without imagining a house on it. Or something on it . . . and now they are building golf courses, too, as I have mentioned before.
This house, which I hope to die in—so write it down in your Rolodexes—is #5 Stonebridge Club Estates. It’s a “new” Victorian with so many turrets and terraces that I lose track of them. Sandy and the decorator had a “field day” planning everything. It’s a lot of fun, but almost too grand for me! I feel like somebody on a British show on public television, as in “Upstairs, Downstairs.”
You know that I have been after Sandy for years to slow down, relax, get a hobby . . . well, the good news is that he has taken up golf—he says that if he’s going to build these courses, he might as well learn the game. The bad news is that he’s gotten so “hooked” on it that he spends every free minute out on the course, it’s like another job! Men! But I guess he is enjoying it—poor thing, he deserves to, he has worked so hard all his life, you know, even in junior high and high school down in Florida. Sandy never wants to talk about his past. He says he has “put all that behind” him. Which is certainly true—why, we barely know Sandy’s family. His parents have been dead for years, and I have never even met two of his brothers, who live out West. I think this is a shame, but Sandy says it is American! It certainly isn’t Southern, as I pointed out to him, but then Florida certainly isn’t the South.
Oh well! Who am I to say? I had it so easy, by comparison. And as for the kids today, well . . . “‘nuff said”! We give them too much, if you ask me. I think they all ought to work. But strangely enough, Sandy disagrees with me on this, he is just so proud that they don’t have to! He wants them to concentrate on extracurricular activities so they can get into real good schools. So that’s what they are doing.
This means that I am in the car constantly, driving everybody everywhere to clubs, practices, etc. As I told Sandy recently, sometimes I feel like I am part of the car, like a fancy gearshift or something. But I guess it will be worth it. James is already a state-ranked Junior tennis star at 11. This past year, he has had matches in Greensboro, Wilmington, Kinston, you name it. And those matches last forever, let me tell you. Actually I am privately not even sure that they are good for kids, what with John McEnroe as a role model! They throw their rackets and everything, often (it seems) encouraged by their parents, who are just as competitive as they are. I am proud to add that James never does this. He has beautiful manners on the court, his coach insists on it. Sandy thinks tennis is good preparation for life, but I am not so sure. Anyway it is a big relief for me now that we have moved so close to the club, so James can just walk over there for his lessons. It will also be convenient for Claire and Melanie next summer, as they are both on the swim team.
At school, however, they go off in opposite directions. Claire is the cheerleader and math whiz, while Melanie is very active with the drama club and literary magazine. I’ll swear, it’s like each of them represents a different side of the brain! (I guess Claire must take after you, Ruthie!) I have never seen so much energy, or so much talking on the phone. Actually, this goes for both of them. We have had to put in a separate phone line for the twins. They remain best friends despite their different interests, though it’s easy to tell them apart now that Claire has cut her hair and Melanie has let hers grow so long. I’ll be glad when they can get their driver’s licenses —or I think I will. It will certainly be easier for me, but of course I will never know exactly where they are then. . . . Well, there are things you can’t afford to think about too much, as a mother. The whole world is so dangerous, isn’t it? and yet we have to let them go. Somehow it is harder to let girls go than boys, Sandy feels this way too, I know it is a sexist attitude on our part.
Andrew has already been accepted at an art school in Boston, after winning the Danziger Art Award last May when he was only a junior. Even I am forced to admit that all those years of a messy room (read, creative kid) have really added up to something special. I will actually miss the mess!
Sandy has always expected the boys to enter Copeland Construction Company with him, but it looks like he will just have to wait for “James McEnroe Jr.” to come along, since Andrew clearly marches to a different drummer. Andrew didn’t even tell us that he had applied for early admission to art school! In a way, Andrew is just as independent and bull-headed as his dad, I guess this is why they have clashed so much over the years. Of course Sandy is just as proud of him now as I am. I confess, I can’t seem to get it through my head that Andrew is actually graduating! It seems like just yesterday to me that I was walking him to first grade at the old Cobb School, when we lived on Rosemary Street. I remember how tight he held my hand.
Ruthie and Jay have finally produced their first child, Eliza—Ruthie says her biological alarm clock finally went off! Now she acts like she invented motherhood. (Just kidding, Ruthie!) Seriously, she has also developed a new line of maternity clothes called Mother Nature. Look for them in stores everywhere, starting next summer. Personally, I think this is a great idea, remembering all those awful plaid overblouses we used to wear back in the old days, with bows and things . . . where does the time go? Now the idea is to let your belly show, Ruthie says it’s much more natural. Some of the Mother Nature dresses are actually knits!
Mama is fine, in fact she’s amazing, still running her little restaurant. Of course she is heartbroken over Joe’s disappearance, as am I. Sorry to interject a note of sadness into the Christmas letter, but I want to ask all of you to let me or Mama know immediately if you hear from him, or if you spot him anywhere. (Randy Billings, one of Sandy’s foremen, swore he saw Joe on the street in Chattanooga, Tenn., but this lead did not pan out either.)
Sandy and I have now joined a couples gourmet club which is a lot of fun. The other couples are John and Dovie Birmingham, Hap and Sarah Swann, Brenda and Roger Raines, Mary Lib and Bo Clark, and Sam and Ruth Wingate, many of them neighbors here at Stonebridge Club Estates. Each couple is responsible for dinner once a year (we meet every two months). So far we have had a Hibachi Grill-Out, a Northern Italian Evening, a Mexican event, and an English High Tea—Sandy nearly starved! It will be our turn in May. Any ideas? Maybe I should just bring Mama over here to cook for everybody—Sandy is really “into” gourmet, but I still think there is nothing like Mama’s home cooking. This reminds me of something funny Mama said the last time she came for a visit. I had taken her and the girls to an early morning swim meet, picking up some coffee and bagels on the way. Mama didn’t say a thing when I bought the food, but the funniest look came over her face when she bit into her bagel. “Well!” she said. “Whoever thinks this is good has clearly never tasted a biscuit!”
What else? I continue to volunteer at the PTA Thrift Shop and the Altar Guild (I have given up the Sunday School class) and recently I joined a women’s book group— I decided it was time to take “time for myself.” I am really enjoying it.
. . . And to all a good night,
Mary
P.S. From the files of the Gourmet Club (these are really good)
6 chicken livers (about ½ lb.), each cut into 3 pieces
6 canned water chestnuts, drained, each cut into 3 pieces
9 slices bacon, cut in half lengths and partially cooked
6 scallions, cut in 1-in. pieces
Marinade:
¼ cup soy sauce
¼ cup dry sherry
1 tsp. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. sesame oil (optional)
1 slice fresh ginger root, 1 inch in diameter, ¼ in. thick (or) ½ tsp. powdered ginger
Combine soy sauce, sherry, brown sugar, and sesame oil in non-metallic container. Squeeze in fresh ginger root with garlic press. With sharp knife, cut a small incision in each piece of chicken liver and insert a piece of water chestnut. Place prepared chicken livers, precooked bacon slices, and scallion strips into marinade. Mix well to coat, and let stand for at least one hour, longer if possible. Drain, reserving marinade.
Wrap a bacon strip around each piece of chicken liver with water chestnut. Secure firmly with small well-soaked bamboo skewer. On 9-inch bamboo skewers place 3 wrapped chicken livers, alternating with scallion slices. Lay on platter and pour reserved marinade over all.
Place on oiled grill over medium coals for 5 or 6 minutes, turning to crisp bacon evenly. Serve each skewer on individual plate with small fork. These should be served hot!
(Contributed by John and Dovie Birmingham)
Dec. 10, 1989
To my dear family and friends,
It’s early for me to be writing the Christmas Letter, but there’s so much to say, it may take you until Christmas to read this one. Mama died peacefully in her sleep this past August, at age 67. She had no illness, or symptoms of any sort, beyond the slight “slowing down” you would expect. She was as mentally sharp as ever, right up to the day of her death. The last person to talk with her, her next-door neighbor, Mrs. Muncey, said Mama was fussing about where the paperboy had thrown her paper—up in the shrubbery by the porch where it was hard to get to, instead of the yard. Mama always read the paper, and always watched the news. She was a remarkable woman.
It’s funny—I can’t say I actually had a presentiment, but that Sunday right before her death, I suddenly dropped everything and got in the car and took off to see her. I can’t say why—I just felt like it. Sandy thought I’d gone crazy, of course, but it was the Member-Guest Invitational at the club, and I knew he would never miss me. I knew he’d be over there all weekend anyway.
It was a hot day with a white sky that seemed to blend in with the fields on the horizon. The road ahead of me was shimmering in the heat, the way it does in summer. There’s never any traffic on 111 South—my kids used to call it the “ghost road”—so I got there in no time. I found Mama walking around the house in her black and white voile dress and her stocking feet, just home from church. I stood outside the screen door for a minute and watched her. She opened first one drawer, then another. She peered all along the top of the mantel, then felt behind all the books in the bookcase, those old Reader’s Digest Condensed books which she had had ever since I could remember. She reached up to touch the top of the grandfather clock.
“Surprise, Mama!” I said from the door.
“Why, hello, Mary.” But Mama did not seem at all surprised. She smiled her old sweet smile at me and gave me a big hug when I stepped inside. I did not point out that she had left the door unlatched—we were always trying to get her to lock it. Though she had been losing weight for a year or more, she seemed strong as ever when she hugged me. Then she held me out at arm’s length and looked at me good, her blue eyes starred by the cataracts which the doctor said weren’t “ripe” enough to operate on.
“How’s the kids?” she asked, and I said, “Fine.”
“How’s Sandy?”
“Fine.”
Then she asked, “Heard from Joe lately?” and I said, “Mama, you know I haven’t heard from Joe. I would have called you if I had.”
“Well . . .” Mama said. She kind of let it trail off. “I was just thinking that you might have heard from him,” she said. She was looking at me with her head cocked to the side like a bird. It was the first time she had mentioned Joe in I don’t know how long. Then she slapped her thighs in that familiar getting-down-to-business gesture. “It’s a good thing you came up here today,” she announced. “I can use you, Miss Mary!” and before I knew it, she had stuck an apron on me and had set me to cutting up green tomatoes and onions at the same old white enamel kitchen table I remember so well from childhood.
“How come we’re making so much of this pickle relish?” I thought to ask when I’d been chopping for almost an hour. Mama looked at me darkly from the stove, where she was stirring up the first batch. “Why, Mary,” she said, “you know perfectly well that Mr. Hughes won’t eat a thing without it!” So that was that. Mr. Ray Hughes, who runs Hughes Hardware Store across from the courthouse, had been coming to Birdie’s Lunch every day for 20 years.
We sweltered all afternoon in that hot kitchen, breathing in pickles until our eyes watered. Of course Sandy had insisted upon air-conditioning Mama’s house years before, but Mama refused to turn it on, claiming that air-conditioning was bad for her arthritis, a medical notion she had gotten from Parade magazine. We cooked while it got darker and darker outside, then windy, as a thunderstorm came up all of a sudden out of nowhere, rolling in across the fields from the coast. We cooked while the air grew heavy and the light failed, and thunder crashed over our heads, and lightning branched across the sky. Then the rain fell hard for ten minutes, pounding on the roof. In an instant I was transported back to the world of my childhood on the farm, when Joe and I used to huddle under an old blanket on the porch glider during thunderstorms, caught up in delicious fright, telling each other long, complicated stories that scared us both to death. I kept on chopping tomatoes.
After a while I looked up to see Mama smiling at me. “You’re cutting them up too big, honey,” she said, and I started cutting smaller. I don’t know where the afternoon went. Before I realized it, we were done, the jars in a glistening row on the windowsill, the green tomato pickles glowing from within, like jewels. I kissed Mama good-bye but paused in the doorway to look back and see her searching those bookshelves again—for what? I will never know. There is so much that we can never know.
I headed north on the “ghost road” toward Raleigh with a warm, full heart. I imagined Mama getting ready for prayer meeting, exchanging her house slippers for those old black lace-up shoes that the twins called her “witch shoes,” powdering her face with the same loose powder she had used since time immemorial, Lord knows where she still bought it, and driving that old green Buick over to church as she had done twice every Sunday for so many years, through a long succession of preachers whose names I could never remember (she had taken to calling the most recent one, Mr. Trimble, “that nice little boy-preacher”).
The next day she went to the dime store as usual. She fed some of the new pickle relish to Mr. Ray Hughes, who was heard to pronounce it “damn fine.” Then she came home from the store, complained about the newspaper to Mrs. Muncey, watched—I am sure—the news and “Major Dad” on TV, and went to bed. I’m also sure she said, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep,” as she always did when putting Joe and me to bed. I do not say this prayer myself, nor have I taught it to any of my children. I don’t know why not, actually. But now this strikes me as awful. I have always envied Mama her faith, and now I envy it more than ever, as I struggle to go on without her. I keep forgetting she’s dead—whenever something happens, I automatically reach for the phone to tell her about it. I guess I will go on doing this for a while.
Sandy says I should consider it a blessing in disguise, as Birdie’s Lunch was due to be closed this coming spring along with the dime store, a new Wal-Mart out on the highway having put them out of business. James Grady had been running the store at a loss for the past two years— mainly, I suspect, to give Mama something to do. He was just about as fond of her as we are. Were. As we were.
Anyway, it is hard to imagine how we will face Christmas without her, since she always made the gravy for the hen, and brought the Sticks and Stones and pound cake with her. I have already made the pound cake and the Sticks and Stones, but I don’t know how I will make the gravy. I never could make gravy worth a damn. I believe it is a lost art among my generation!
But on a happier note, we have had lots of other changes in the Copeland household, too. The biggest news is that I have gone back to school. I have always had a secret dream of doing this, have long held this possibility in the back of my mind. And all of a sudden, after Mama died, I just did it! I drove across town and registered at the McKimmon Center for Continuing Education at N.C. State. Technically I am classified as a special student. But if all goes well, I will become a regular student, starting second semester. This thrills me beyond belief. I guess I have realized that we don’t live forever, and that the only time to do what we really want to do is now. This is the thing about a parent’s death—especially the second parent’s death— suddenly there is no other person standing between you and the great beyond, that darkness, the grave. I know I sound morbid, but it has been such an illuminating insight for me that I have to share it with you. Listen: the time is now. We are the next in line.
I guess you think I am being pretty dramatic when all I’ve actually done is sign up for a few classes! But to me this is a big deal. My stomach was actually turning flip-flops when I turned in my first paper. I was terrified! My humanities professor is a young man named Dr. Winters, from up North. (I can just hear Mama now—“that little boy-teacher,” she would have called him!) He is a thin, moody, intense young man not much older than my Andrew, very smart, and he is a Marxist! I have never met one before. It is quite interesting in class, because everything we read, we have to look at the economics and the politics of the time. Dr. Winters believes that any book is primarily a product of its time. I am not used to thinking of things this way, and at first I just bit my tongue, but now I feel free to argue with Dr. Winters, who actually seems to like it when people disagree with him!
My other class is Narrative and Expository Writing, and here I am having a “field day.” My teacher is an old fat rumpled fellow past retirement, Dr. Rutledge, who seems “out of it” much of the time yet occasionally fixes us with his bleary old eye and says something I know I will never forget, something I have to write down in my notebook and mull over for days, like I used to do with Gerald Ruffin. Dr. Rutledge has been extremely encouraging about my writing, as well. All this writing (we have to do weekly compositions, with revisions) has taken me right back to myself as a child, to Joe and me and those Small Reviews we used to sell in the neighborhood, to myself and how much I used to love to read and write. It’s like a string that was broken has been re-tied, or re-attached—suddenly I feel a sense of continuity between that child I once was and the woman I am now. I did not realize how completely I had been cut off from her, and for how long. Obviously I will major in English, as I started out doing so long ago, but I will have to struggle through the other courses too, of course. I’m sure it won’t hurt me a bit! Though I have never felt so ignorant.
One of my first assignments in my composition class was to write about a process, so I wrote about how to take out a stain. It was the only “process” I could think of. And I can get a stain out of anything, as Sandy will tell you! Hair spray removes a ballpoint-ink stain, for instance. Put meat tenderizer on fresh bloodstains, and salt on red wine stains. White vinegar and water for pet urine. Mr. Rutledge was simply astonished. He gave me an A, commenting upon both my writing and my “esoteric area of expertise.” (I had to look up “esoteric.”)
Well, I don’t mean to blither on, but all this has been enormously exciting for me. Also it is so easy to “blither on” now that Sandy has gotten me this new computer and printer (which will make me as many copies as I ask it to!), an early Christmas present. (Sandy has been very supportive of my going back to school, once he got used to the idea. At first he couldn’t believe I was serious.) The kids seem real proud, too. In fact, if all goes well, son James might be starting out at N.C. State about the same time I finish (too bad he can’t major in girls!). The other kids are fine, and so are we all.
Love,
Mary Copeland
½ peck green tomatoes (20)
2 stalks celery
10 green peppers
24 large white onions
2 large cabbages
8 pounds brown sugar
3 tablespoons whole cloves
16 tablespoons mustard
2 teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoon red pepper
3½ quarts white vinegar
8 tablespoons ginger
Pare tomatoes and chop fine; cut stem from green peppers, remove seeds, and chop fine; shred the cabbage; chop onions and celery fine.
Mix ingredients. Add salt and let stand 1 hour. Drain. Make a syrup of vinegar, brown sugar, and spices. Scald the syrup, add the chopped mixture, and simmer, after it has been brought to boiling, for forty minutes. Yield 8 pints.
Feb. 6, 1991
To our dear family and friends,
First let me apologize for the lack of a Christmas letter from the Copelands this year! I know this has never happened before, but listen:
I’ve got some good news, and I’ve got some bad news.
The bad news is that Sandy had to have a triple bypass on December 15th.
The good news is that the surgery was completely successful and he is just fine, so he is very lucky—we are all very lucky!
The most alarming thing about this is that Sandy felt perfectly okay, exhibiting no symptoms at all. And you know he has always kept his weight down, as opposed to Yours Truly. Anyway, what happened was that Sandy had to go to Duke University for a complete physical as required for insurance purposes. (Johnny Cook, Sandy’s partner in the new developments down at the coast, insisted that the company take out this huge policy on him.)
Well, things were going great until the stress test. They took him off the bike and sent him straight to a hospital room —wouldn’t even let him come back home for one minute! I had to pack his things and take them to the hospital for him. (Of course I took all the wrong things, I was so rattled. . . .) They did an angioplasty the next morning, and operated two days later. Sandy was fit to be tied, of course! Not that it mattered. You know how those doctors at Duke are. (This is why we didn’t come to any Christmas parties, in case anybody was wondering. Mystery solved! Sandy wouldn’t let me tell anybody except the kids until it was all over.)
But he has been a model patient ever since, and now we are both involved in this very arduous program they recommend. (Actually they do more than recommend— they tell you flat out that you have to change your lifestyle if you want to stay alive!) So we are both doing all of it— the diet, the walking, etc. I’m sure it is good for me, too. Every other day we go over to the Life Center so they can monitor Sandy and we can be in a support group. Honestly, it’s just like AA! Naturally, Sandy hates this part, he’s so private, and feels that people ought to keep their own worries and concerns to themselves. He says he doesn’t want to hear about anybody else’s life! not to mention sharing his own. You know how men are—no wonder they have the most heart attacks. But I’m learning a lot, let me tell you. Also Sandy bemoans so much time spent “just walking,” as he puts it. (At first he was carrying his cellular phone, but the doctor took it away from him.)
Naturally Christmas was somewhat disorganized this year, as you can imagine, but I had done some cooking ahead, of course, and the twins pitched in with the rest. I am not even ashamed to say that we had a delicious smoked turkey from the Catering Company! And we certainly had a lot to be thankful for on this holiday.
What else? Here’s a quick rundown on the kids. Our budding poet Melanie loves the academic world and is planning for graduate school, while Claire is already an intern at Carolina Telecom, a company I have yet to understand the true nature of! Andrew continues to pursue his art career on the West Coast—he couldn’t make it for Christmas this year as he was “hanging a new show” in San Francisco and also moving from San Francisco to L.A., which sounds like a terrifying place to me, but which Andrew apparently loves. He has rented a little studio house up in the hills near that HOLLYWOOD sign, you know the one I mean. Anyway, all the kids are fine, and I guess I am, too, though I had to take Incompletes in all my courses and now am killing myself trying to finish them up, plus take the two I had enrolled in for this semester. I may have to drop one of those, actually.
If I can just make it through the semester, we have a wonderful summer vacation planned (Sandy is being forced to take vacations now, hurrah!) to Scotland, where he will golf and go to fly-fishing school (a new hobby which is supposed to slow him down) while I curl up in some ancient place reading long English novels to my heart’s content.
Happy Valentine’s Day,
Mary Copeland
Appropriately enough, I send along our recipe for
4 cups orange juice
¼ c. chopped mint
Blend and freeze in ice cream freezer.
Dec. 18, 1991
Merry Xmas! to Ruthie and good friends —
1992 will find all the Copelands busier than ever, heading off in a million different directions. Those hard years with Sandy and me working all day long, and then poring over the books together at night, seem almost like a dream to me now. And speaking of dreams, Sandy and I had a real “dream vacation” in Scotland, though I feel like I have scarcely seen him since, he has been so busy putting in “Plantation,” Copeland Construction’s new multi-million-dollar coastal “village” and golf complex. They are paying special attention to the environment, trying not to disturb the fragile ecology of the marsh or diminish the wild charm of the island itself. So Sandy has been down at the coast a lot, while I have been struggling with chemistry and loving Twentieth Century Lit., especially a seminar on “Images of Women” that I took this past semester. I plan to do my Senior Thesis on Virginia Woolf.
I also took an extremely interesting and challenging American Studies course this past semester. One day I was in the library doing research on “The Sixties” when another person from the same class, a young woman, turned to me and said, “Why, Mary, I’m surprised to find you here. You
were right there during the Sixties, weren’t you? I shouldn’t think you’d need to do research.”
“Listen,” I told her, the truth coming to me even as I spoke, “I was alive, if that’s what you mean. But I missed the Sixties entirely, as a matter of fact. I was just too busy having babies and Tupperware parties.”
She stared at me blankly for a moment before she shrugged and went back to her microfilm. She didn’t get it.
But you get it, right? You know what I meant.
I must admit that virtually all my assumptions have been seriously challenged in these past two years—I highly recommend going back to school for anyone who wants to have a more open mind! I have come to actually like Melanie’s tattoo now, for instance (a vine around her ankle)! And I’ve decided it’s definitely a good thing for young couples to live together before taking the (drastic) step of marriage—although I can just imagine what Mama would have had to say about that! We are very fond of Melanie’s friend Bruce, a musician, and (once we got used the age difference) of Claire’s young lawyer, who is raising his two children by himself, apparently. (Can you imagine? He seems to be doing a pretty good job, too.)
Everybody will be coming home for Christmas, including Andrew who is bringing a friend from California. And I’ve got to finish one late lab report before I can even begin to cook! Though we may be “ships that pass in the night,” you have to admit we’re heading off in some interesting directions!
Love and Peace,
Mary
Tuesday, Dec. 10, 1993
To Ruthie and My Very Special Friends,
A REAL CHRISTMAS LETTER, THE FIRST EVER
First, my apologies for not writing a Christmas letter last year (for not returning calls, for not returning letters, etc.). The fact is, for a long time I couldn’t do anything. Not a damn thing. Nothing. I was shell-shocked, immobilized. This was followed by a period when I did too many things. Marybeth, who has been through it, wrote to me about this time, saying, “Don’t make any big decisions”—very good advice, and I wish I’d followed it. Instead, I agreed to a separation agreement, then to a quick no-fault divorce, then to Sandy’s plan of selling the house P.D.Q. I just wanted everything over with—the way you feel that sudden irresistible urge to clean out your closet sometimes.
Listen: if this ever happens to you, resist that urge. Go slowly. I didn’t even get a lawyer. Sandy and I used the same lawyer, at his suggestion. Now I know how dumb I was! Well, I don’t intend to go into that part of it. But the point is, I actually trusted Sandy—and why not? I had trusted him all these years.
I kept smiling and smiling, and signing things. Everyone remarked upon how well I was “taking it.” I just kept on smiling. After smiling for three or four weeks I stepped on the scale one day and was amazed to see that I’d lost 20 pounds without even realizing it—that 20 pounds I’ve always been meaning to lose.
I was really in bad shape. Every month after Sandy left, in fact, I’d look back and think, Oh, I didn’t even know what I was doing then. I was in such bad shape! Look how much better I am now. But then another month would go by, and I’d look back at myself again and think, Well, I really didn’t know how crazy I was a month ago! Lord, I was crazy then. But I’m so much better now. And then another month would go by, and . . . well, you get the picture. It has taken me a long, long time. And I’m still not there. I’m still not “adjusted.” I don’t think I will ever be “adjusted”! I don’t even know what this means anymore. I remember thinking (as I cleaned out the house and stuck everything into Village Self Storage, fueled by that crazy manic energy that comes with divorce) that I wished I could just put myself in there as well, to emerge after 5 or 6 years like Rip Van Winkle, miraculously “adjusted,” having avoided all the pain which I am still going through.
I didn’t actually realize that the marriage was over, oddly enough (not when we signed the papers, not when we went to court —none of that really registered) until I walked through our empty house for the very last time right after the closing. As I left the lawyer’s office that afternoon and got in my car (Sandy got in his car, of course) I noticed that my house key was still on my key ring. Without stopping to think, I drove straight over there. I hadn’t been back for months, not since renting this nice little place in Oakwood.
Real estate agents don’t waste any time—they had already hung a SOLD banner across the FOR SALE sign. It was April, and my bulbs were in bloom—all the daffodils in back, the crocuses by the mailbox, the tulips in their raised beds along the terrace. I had grouped them by color, and they looked like a proud little army on parade. The windows shone like diamonds —I guess they’d just been cleaned, for the new owners. I didn’t know anything about the arrangements for selling the house. Sandy had taken care of all that, as he had always taken care of everything. Why, he could have cheated me blind, I realized, though of course I knew he wouldn’t—Sandy was always very scrupulous about money (as opposed to his private life, more later on that!)
For the first time, I wondered why I hadn’t insisted on being more involved, why I had been so happy to have things done for me, decided for me—so happy to relinquish control. Anyway, the house looked great. The trim had been touched up, the terraces had been pressure-washed, the lawn service had obviously just been there.
I unlocked the front door and opened it. It swung inward silently, giving onto the gleaming wood floor of the entrance hall, like the shining path in the Wizard of Oz, I thought briefly, crazily, and then I was walking the house, going into each room. It’s a huge house, of course, I’d forgotten how big it is. An afternoon hush had fallen everywhere, so that my heels clicked and echoed as I walked from room to room. The rooms are large and airy, beautifully proportioned. Sunlight streamed in the big windows and French doors, blinding me.
There was not even a trace of us left. None of the family snapshots stuck up on the refrigerator with magnets; none of the terra-cotta pots that had held my spice garden on the kitchen windowsill; none of James’s tennis rackets which used to hang on the wall of his room; none of Andrew’s endless collections of stamps, of bird books, flower books, constellations; none of the twins’ endless array of old coats and jackets in the hall closet where they’d been accumulating for years . . . all I could see was what had been. I walked through the whole house slowly, then returned to the gleaming foyer to stand for a moment just before I left for the last time, and that’s when it really hit me.
This is the end, I thought. This really is the end of us as a family, the end of my world as I have known it, the end of me as the person I have been since I first met Sandy. That’s when I started to cry. I cried and cried—loud, choking sobs, like a person who has lost everything, which I had. (But in another way I hadn’t, of course, though it would take even more time for me to know this.) I suppose it was only fitting that I should face the end of our marriage there, in the last of our houses, and I thought of them all—the trailer at Greenacres Park; that wonderful old place on Rosemary Street, with the tin roof; Hummingbird Heights, with the great yard and the fantastic jungle gym, always full of tumbling kids, all of them grown and gone now; and then finally this “castle,” as Melanie used to call it, Stonebridge Club Estates, the last one, the last shell ever to hold that family which we once were.
Well, I cried and cried.
But after about thirty minutes of this, a funny thing started happening. Imperceptibly, even in the midst of all the crying, I felt my spirits start to lift. This continued. I could actually feel energy coming into me, some essential energy that seemed oddly familiar, like an old friend you don’t quite recognize at first. Now, I believe—without dramatizing too much, I hope!—that this was the moment when my self came back, or when I came back to my own real self again.
I found some Kleenex in my purse, blew my nose, dropped my key on the floor in the middle of the hall, and opened the door. The lock clicked shut behind me, and that was that. Sunlight was everywhere, so harsh against my eyes, but I didn’t care. I got back into my car and drove around the circle and down the long driveway, and did not look back. I have not looked back since.
Until today, I suppose, when I decided to write a Christmas letter again. Why not? I’ve got a lot to say. And the Christmas letter was always my thing, not Sandy’s, though for so many years of course I signed both names, and thought of us as one.
Thursday, Dec. 12, 1993
Two days have passed since I began this letter. Two extraordinary days in which I drove over to Village Self Storage and got out the copies I kept of all my Christmas letters from former years. It was so dark in the storage unit that I could scarcely see, and despaired of ever finding anything, but luckily they were right there at the entrance in Mama’s old hope chest from West Virginia, next to a box of Andrew’s drawings and another box labeled “Trophy Collection”— God knows what all is in that storage unit! Now I begin to wonder if this is healthy or unhealthy, under the circumstances, to save so much. Oh who knows?! I have had it with shrinks and marriage counselors, of which more later.
At any rate, I found the letters easily. I brought the chest back here (along with two boxes marked CHRISTMAS ORN., I figure I might as well make a little effort this year, though I certainly don’t have “the Christmas spirit”), made a big pot of tea for myself, and started back at the beginning, reading. 1967 through 1991. Twenty-four Christmas letters, 24 years of family life stuffed into these envelopes and stuck away just as easily as Sandy has stuck me back into “the past” already, that dark box into which he has consigned so much: his childhood, his family. . . . Well, I just can’t do it! I’ll have to haul everything out eventually, I’ll have to go through it all again, “healthy” or not—
Several things have struck me, reading back through all the years.
We really were “in love,” Sandy and me. We really were a family. It was all true. No matter what Sandy says now or what he said in the midst of his mid-life crisis following the heart surgery, or what he said later during our so-called “marriage counseling” (ha!) sessions, we really were together in every way, for many years. Those years count too. The story told in my Christmas letters is a true story. It is the story of our marriage.
Of course there are other stories too, stories not told in those letters, and they are equally true. Back in Greenacres Park, for instance, there was the story of how scared I was, alone with a new baby all day long, how he had colic and would not quit crying and would not quit crying until I thought I would go crazy, until one day I started shaking his crib I got so mad, and then I sank down on the floor and started crying, scared to death, afraid I had hurt my baby. Which I had not. But that story is true too, as true as the story of how much I loved him, and loved taking care of him and Sandy in those early days. See what I just wrote? Taking care. Taking care of Andrew, taking care of Sandy. Isn’t that interesting? A person reading back through these letters might decide that my life has been largely a function of other people’s lives, and that would be true too, or at least it would not be untrue. There is one letter in which I almost came to this conclusion myself, back in 1975, but I could not stand to know it then, and pulled back from the realization. Well, why not? Though true, it wasn’t the whole story either.
During my recent “shrinkage” I have learned all about “denial” of course, but really it seems to me that denial is often a good and useful thing, keeping us going, allowing us to do what has to be done in the world.
Another story I didn’t write at Greenacres Park was the story of Gerald Ruffin, that charming brilliant alcoholic Gerald Ruffin who loved me (and he really did love me, probably as much as Sandy and more than anybody else ever will love me again), and how we used to sit out on those crummy lawn chairs talking and talking all night long sometimes while I patted Andrew’s back as he lay facedown on my lap and mewed like a cat from colic, while the bugs flew around and the BIG AL’S TIRE sign shone all night long just beyond the blooming honeysuckle that covered the stockade fence enclosing us from the “bad neighborhood” which surrounded us on every side. Oh, how sweet that honeysuckle smelled—I will never forget it. And Gerald Ruffin’s profile, outlined against the sign’s red glow . . . well, he was simply the handsomest man I have ever seen. He looked (oh, I don’t know) English, I thought, with that fine aquiline nose, the chiseled chin, nothing weak about it though he was weak, poor thing, he couldn’t bear his vision of the world. Oh, Gerald Ruffin had a story too, of course, and it was a tragic one, involving a brother’s betrayal and a child’s death by drowning and his young wife’s suicide, years before. Gerald Ruffin was 41 years old when I met him. I was 22. I thought he was ancient, of course, but now that I’m older than he was then, I realize he wasn’t ancient at all, and I can understand how a person such as he might take to drink.
Gerald Ruffin had been living in Greenacres Park for several years when we moved there, and I believe I was the only person he had ever really talked to in all that time. Once a week, a dignified black man wearing a porkpie hat would arrive at Gerald’s trailer, sent by his brother, and deposit two paper bags full of groceries on the stoop by the door, tip his hat to me if I was outside with Andrew or standing in my own doorway, and then disappear, and sometime during that day the groceries would disappear too. Not that Gerald Ruffin ever ate much, growing thinner and thinner before my eyes.
In fact I never saw him eat anything, and I never saw him without a drink in his hand. He drank from a silver julep cup, a remnant of better days. He drank vodka and vodka only—Stolichnaya—he called it his “one extravagance.” Whenever he ran out of vodka, he’d call a cab (he’d lost his driver’s license years before) and jump right into it, sometimes still wearing his bathrobe, and have the cabbie drive him to the liquor store and then go in to make his purchase for him, while Gerald sat in the cab magisterially surveying the world outside Greenacres Park “which certainly does not have much to offer,” he’d announce grandly upon his return.
Did I ever sleep with him? No. Did I ever kiss him? Oh yes, Lord yes, many many times in the dead of night with the overpowering smell of that honeysuckle all around us and my own hard-working Sandy asleep inside the trailer. I kissed him in the daytime too, and people saw it—I know Mrs. Pike saw us at least once, but she never said a word about it, I guess she was old enough and wise enough to know what was important and what was not.
I was a good wife. And I was a good mom, too. I got the hang of it. I was also a desperately lonely unhappy girl who might not have made it through those first two years of my marriage without Gerald Ruffin’s conversation (“palaver,” he called it, a word I have never heard anybody else use) or those sweet, sweet vodka-flavored kisses, all the sweeter for their hopelessness. This is why I don’t drink vodka now, by the way. I have never been able to taste the stuff since without the memory of Gerald Ruffin springing straight to mind, which always makes me cry. I am crying now. They say that vodka has no taste, but this isn’t true. You can taste it. I can taste his kisses still, all those years ago.
Which is one reason I got so upset when that marriage therapist urged us to “put all our cards out on the table” and talk about “any infidelities.” Sandy came up with plenty, of course. Over a dozen. Over a dozen women (“girls,” he called them) he’d slept with while he was married to me! But they were “not important,” he said. Just girls he ran into while “out of town” or “at conventions,” or “sales meetings,” where he was “lonely,” so it “didn’t count.” (Dovie Birmingham did count—more on that!) Anyway, the point is that Sandy had all these affairs to put out on the table, so to speak, while I had not one infidelity to report, not one.
I could have kicked myself for not sleeping with Gerald Ruffin, who loved me, I know he did. Perhaps I could have rehabilitated him, saved him, married him . . . certainly, I would have learned a thing or two!
Oh, but that would be another story, wouldn’t it? Another story altogether. Gerald Ruffin died of cirrhosis of the liver in the VA Hospital in Durham in 1979, while we were living at Hummingbird Estates. I kept up with him all that time, calling every week, visiting every month. He weighed 85 pounds when he died. I never mentioned these visits to Sandy, who probably wouldn’t have remembered Gerald anyway. It was another story.
As is the story of my brother Joe, a real tragedy. Joe never should have gone to Vietnam. He never should have gone to any war, he was not cut out for it. I could have gone to Vietnam more easily than Joe. I have always been able to pull myself together to do what needs to be done, but this was not true of Joe. Joe was so sensitive, so imaginative, fragile really, though he kept this side of himself successfully hidden from most people. The fact that he was good at working on cars and engines made him seem like he was stronger and tougher than he was —you know the connotations, the connections we all make between cars and men, between men and war.
Well, Joe was not even really a man, not yet—he was just a boy, and not even a very tough boy. (In later years, I would see so much of Joe in my own Andrew, though of course Joe was not gay. Or: I don’t think Joe was gay. But who knows? He didn’t have a chance to be much of anything, I guess, before we lost him.)
And we did lose him in that war, as surely as if he had been killed.
This was the awful tragedy of it, Joe-who-was-not-Joe coming back, Joe who looked exactly like the old Joe (the curly black hair, the one-sided grin, the snaggletooth) and laughed like the old Joe, and walked like the old Joe, that easy shamble, but was all hollow around the gray eyes which had gone flat and distant somehow, eyes which could no longer quite focus on whoever he was with. And he couldn’t pay attention either. He’d be talking to you, and then he’d simply stop talking, and stand staring at a point somewhere just beyond your face. And then he’d walk away.
This is what happened when Sandy tried to give him a job at the construction company. The first day on the job, Joe’d be great, firm handshakes all around, joking with the guys. And he’d outwork them all—he could build anything, put anything together. He’d be whistling, Sandy said. Enjoying himself. Joe was always a great whistler. Then the second day, or maybe the third or the fourth, he’d just walk off the job. Leave for lunch and never come back. Take a cigarette break and bye-bye.
He’d be gone for a day or two, then show up at Mama’s or back at our house, all smiles, whistling, glad to see everybody. So then Sandy would try to talk to him, and give him another job with another crew, and before you knew it, the same thing would happen all over again. Sandy knocked himself out to no avail. I have never seen him so frustrated. Sandy always liked Joe (well, Joe was so likable, wasn’t he?) even though he never really knew him until after Vietnam. And I think perhaps Sandy felt guilty himself because he never had to go, because we had a baby. But Mama felt guiltier than anybody, and talked about it constantly, assuming all the blame, which was wrong, of course. If anybody was to blame it was Daddy, who never could see more than one side to anything. Right or wrong, black or white. Mama was fond of saying that Daddy had “the courage of his convictions.” But is this strength of character, or is it stupidity? Now I wonder.
I remember that time Daddy hit Joe when we were kids, the day of the flood, when he was whipping Ruthie, and Joe tried to stop him. (Isn’t it funny how some things will stick in your mind forever while others, more important or so you’d imagine, simply disappear?) I remember that Joe had on a green International Harvester cap, that he nearly fell down the front steps, that his feet made a sucking noise in the mud as he stumbled away.
I also remember, as if it were yesterday, one of those discussions they had (Mama, Daddy, and Joe) about what Joe would do if he got drafted. Sandy and I had driven over from Raleigh shortly after our marriage. I was in the first trimester of my pregnancy, and couldn’t keep anything on my stomach. So in addition to being sick, I was really nervous, for I knew that my elopement had broken their hearts, no matter what a brave front Mama was trying to display at the time. It was already cold, sometime after Halloween. I remember how the dead stalks of corn stood up in the fields, how the sky was all red and silver. I have always liked winter sunsets the best. Sandy had to pull over twice to let me throw up. But then finally we were there, driving slowly through town just as the streetlights came on, past the dime store (closed, it was Sunday).
We pulled up in front of the house. Sandy opened my door and took my hand and kissed me once, hard, before I turned the glass doorknob and stepped inside. This was the third time I had been home since my marriage. The first time was awful —Mama cried, Daddy stalked upstairs, and Joe tried in vain to hide his disappointment. The second visit had been strained but cordial. Joe was not at home.
So I was praying that this visit might be better—we had come to pick up a loveseat and a rocking chair that Mama had offered us in a gesture of what I hoped was reconciliation.
And as soon as we walked into the kitchen, I knew it would be all right. For I was no longer the problem.
Joe was the problem now. He and Daddy sat facing each other across the old white enameled kitchen table where Mama did all her cooking (this table I have now in my own kitchen in my own little house). Both of them were smoking. Cigarette smoke hung blue in the air above the white table, beneath the hanging globe of the lamp. Mama was at the sink, back turned, tension evident in the way she stood. Daddy and Joe were staring at each other. They looked exactly alike: handsome, angular men with long faces and those wide expressive mouths.
“No son of mine . . .” Daddy began.
“Hi, everybody,” I said, and Mama whirled around to hug me with her hands still wet, the first real hug I’d had from her since our marriage, and I was so glad to get it.
“Honey!” she exclaimed. “How are you feeling? Did you all get any dinner?” she asked Sandy, who allowed as how we had not, since I hadn’t felt up to eating, and then Mama was feeding us cold fried chicken, and they were telling us everything.
Daddy was trying to get Joe to enlist, believing that this would give him “more choice” than if he waited around to get drafted. Sandy immediately agreed (I believe this is the very minute that Daddy decided he was okay) and recommended the Marines. Joe sat there like a rock looking so miserable that at last I took pity on him and said, “Why not the Navy? I think their uniforms are the cutest,” which made everybody laugh, it was such a silly remark in the middle of this serious conversation. (Here is another thing that I have always been good at, playing a little dumb in order to make everyone laugh, to relax a room.) Joe grinned at me but remained uncharacteristically silent in the center of that conversation which whirled and eddied all about him, a rock in the midst of the current. Sandy ate three or four pieces of chicken and praised it extravagantly. He and Daddy were deep into a discussion about what the government ought to do about draft dodgers when Joe slipped away.
It was the first time I ever remember him slipping away like that, and it was the last time Sandy and I were to see him before I had my baby and Joe was drafted.
Only of course we didn’t know any of that then. I just thought, Oh well, Joe’s gone over to the shop to work on a car and listen to music (his favorite occupation). I didn’t really think anything about it at the time. I was just happy that Daddy was finally talking to Sandy (I always knew they would get along if they’d give each other a chance) and that Mama seemed glad to see me.
And in fact, the worst was over. Right as we were getting in the car to leave, she gave me a whole set of dishes that she’d gotten for me with Green Stamps, saying, “Well now, just go ahead and take these with you. I was going to give them to you for Christmas, but I can’t wait.” Which was typical of Mama!
Daddy knew it, too. “Aw, shoot, Birdie. Now you’ll just have to get her another damn Christmas present,” he said from the dark front porch. All I could see of him was the red tip end of his cigarette in the dark. “You all be careful now,” he yelled as we drove off.
So Mama blamed herself for what happened to Joe. She couldn’t blame Daddy, as he was dead, and anyway she had sanctified him in her memory as he never was in life, where he had been a stubborn opinionated hard-working man like most others of his time and place, no better and no worse. Oh, how I had loved him myself, for his faults as well as his virtues! (I guess it is easier to love a father than a husband in this way.) In any case, Mama never got over it, just as Joe never got over it. “If only I had stood up to your Daddy!” she’d say later. Or, “If only Joe had gone to college!” etc. But it was too late. (Sometimes it can be too late, sometimes things are irrevocable.)
And you know what I think Mama was looking for, that very last time I saw her? I think she was still looking for some clue as to what had become of Joe, searching in the only places she could search, the little familiar nooks and crannies of the life he once had shared with them but then could share no longer. Or perhaps Mama was remembering all those endless detective games which Joe and I had played as children, especially the Hardy Boys games, when I was Frank and he was Joe, of course.
And now I am Mary Pickett again, having resumed my maiden name. I did this yesterday, at the courthouse downtown. It’s a very simple procedure. I’m not sure exactly why I chose to do this, since I am still “holding on” to all those things in my storage unit. But clearly, the name change has something to do with reading through these old Christmas letters. For one thing, I was fascinated to note how many different ways I’d signed my name over the years —there are all these different names at the ends of the letters. So I have decided to have only one name from now on: Mary Pickett, though I suspect I will always see the “Copeland” there too in my mind’s eye, my ghost name, just as Nov. 2nd will always be my ghost anniversary.
Another fascinating thing about the Christmas letters is all the recipes —I feel as if I have written out my life story in recipes! The Cool Whip and mushroom soup years, the hibachi and fondue period, then the quiche and crêpes phase, and now it’s these salsa years. I have spent my entire life cooking and (Lord help me!) putting the leftovers into smaller and smaller containers.
That brings up the Gourmet Club, so I guess I’d better get the business of Dovie Birmingham over with right now.
As far as I was concerned, it all began at Dovie and John’s anniversary party in the summer of 1988. It was billed as a “pool party,” designed to inaugurate their new swimming pool as well as celebrate their twenty years of marriage. I didn’t even take a bathing suit, of course, as I had no intention of showing my body to everybody in town, especially to all those people you see in other contexts, such as your dentist or pediatrician, for instance. And sure enough, it was a huge party. All the members of the Gourmet Club were present, of course, plus lots of other neighbors from Stonebridge Estates, members of John Birmingham’s law firm, and their many other friends. The Birminghams had a wide circle of acquaintance due to his civic interests and her vivaciousness. (This was the word everybody used whenever Dovie Birmingham’s name came up: “vivacious.”) In fact, Dovie was a small energetic woman with too-large breasts that almost seemed to tip her over, like Dolly Parton, short thin fluffy white-blond hair and pale eyes that always darted around a room, assessing the situation, seeing how she was doing. I don’t mean to be too hard on her here. In fact I always liked Dovie Birmingham just fine until that very night, the night of her anniversary party where I was only trying to be helpful, in a neighborly way, by volunteering to go out to their new pool house and get some ice from the deep freeze since they were running low at the bar inside and at that moment our hosts were nowhere to be seen.
Have I mentioned that the Birminghams’ party featured a Hawaiian motif? It also featured blue drinks that looked like Windex, with little umbrellas in them, and leis for the ladies, though so many ladies had come that they’d run out of leis early on. I had not gotten one. I wore a long loose flowered dress which looked vaguely Hawaiian, I hoped, though I’d bought it in the lingerie section of Dillard’s that afternoon. Getting into the spirit of the party, I’d taken off my shoes at the door, and I can still recall exactly how the damp grainy pebbled concrete of the patio felt to my bare feet as I walked out to the pool house, examining the Birminghams’ new pool which I found almost ostentatious, actually, since it was so big and the country club was practically next door anyway. It was an irregularly shaped pool with that pebbly concrete (plus lots of plants and fake “rocks”) laid out in such a way as to make it all look “natural,” though it was not natural, of course, no more natural than the plastic lily pads floating on the water. A little artificial waterfall trickled endlessly into the pool, making ripples. No one was swimming yet.
The pool house was supposed to look like a pagoda. I went around the back and pulled the door open and there was my own husband Sandy kissing Dovie Birmingham who immediately began to squeal like a stuck pig. She was holding one foot up in the air like a teenager in one of those old Beach Blanket Bingo movies. In fact they both looked like people caught in a still shot from a Grade B movie, standing there beneath the humming fluorescent lights of the pool house.
“Oh shit,” Dovie Birmingham said. She had a smudge of red lipstick all over one of her big front teeth.
“Excuse me,” I said, shutting the door. I was terribly embarrassed, and felt somehow guilty, as if it were all my fault. I walked back around the pool carefully, noticing the interesting dark blotchy shadows on the bottom created by those plastic lily pads. The pool was ostentatious, I decided. Still barefooted, I walked straight through the party and out the front door of the Birminghams’ house and two blocks through the neighborhood to my own house, where I surprised Melanie and two of her friends smoking marijuana in the portico. Normally this would have “thrown me for a loop.” But I didn’t even mention it. I merely said I had a headache and went upstairs and lay down, soon to be followed by my ashen and contrite Sandy, carrying my shoes in his hand, full of apology and explanation. He said it had never happened before, that he didn’t know what had come over him, or them, actually—he didn’t know what had gotten into them, though he blamed himself, of course. Dovie Birmingham was not in any way to blame. Sandy had had too much to drink, that’s all. It would never happen again, that was for damn sure! Damn sure!
“Now come over here, honey,” he said, “and forgive this bad old man.”
Well, I did.
And if you are surprised by that, then you don’t have a clue about who I was during all those years. Of course I forgave him. I was dying to forgive him, feeling, as I said, that it was my fault anyhow. I decided I had gotten too wrapped up in the kids, had neglected the marriage. (Now I believe that whenever you start thinking about “the marriage” like it’s a needy third person, you’re in trouble anyway.)
So Sandy and I “made up.” We “worked it out.”
This lasted for about ten days, until John Birmingham paid a call on us one evening right after supper. I remember that he telephoned first. Sandy and I went to the front door and watched him walk straight across our yard, right through our underground sprinkler system like he didn’t even notice all the sprinklers going at once, and I don’t believe he did notice them. Clearly, here was a man with something on his mind. Once inside, John Birmingham refused to sit down, and got right to the point.
“Sandy,” he said, “Dovie tells me that you and she are in love, and that you plan to get married. She says this has been going on for over a year.”
John Birmingham is an aging preppie who went to Carolina for both his undergraduate and law degrees, and looks like it. This was not supposed to happen in his life. He did not even so much as glance at me. Nor did my husband.
“Mary,” Sandy said, “why don’t you go check on the children, honey?”
Which was exactly what I had been thinking. But they were all gone at that moment—mercifully, thankfully— James playing tennis at the club, the girls off Lord know where, and Andrew away at school, of course. After I made sure that the house was empty, I came back down the stairs to find the entrance hall empty too, except for a little puddle of water where John Birmingham had been standing. The door to the study was closed, and remained closed for over an hour. I waited there uncertainly for a while, and then went back to the kitchen and washed the dishes and listened to NPR. (This is what we do, isn’t it? We listen to NPR while the whole world crashes down around our ears, it’s the only thing we can think of to do.) Finally I heard the front door close, and then Sandy came into the kitchen and stood behind me and put his hands on my shoulders.
“John was mistaken,” he said.
“But Sandy—” I started crying.
“John was mistaken,” Sandy said again, “and that’s the end of it.”
Only it wasn’t, of course. Dovie Birmingham immediately moved back to Dallas, where she was from, taking their only child, a little girl (“one of those puny late-life babies,” Mama had said once, about this child), with her. John moved into an apartment and put their house on the market. At first it was priced too high, and didn’t sell. I kept tabs on this, for some reason, driving past it at least twice a day. Once, during this period, I stopped my car on impulse, got out and entered the Birminghams’ back yard through the side gate, and went out to stand by the pool. It was September, but hot. I had been to a bridal luncheon at the club. All of a sudden I stripped down to my underwear and jumped into the pool. It felt great! I swam a number of laps and then treaded water for a long time, enjoying the musical sound of the little fountain. The ends of my fingers had gotten all wrinkled up by the time I got out and went home.
You know most of the rest of the story.
A year later, Mama died and I went back to college. Then Sandy had the heart operation. Now I believe that “the marriage” never recovered from this operation. It was as if “the marriage” had had its own heart attack, and died on the spot. Sandy and I were still alive, of course, never more fit and healthy due to that follow-up program at the Life Center. This is also when we first went to the marriage counselor (never go to a “marriage counselor,” just get a divorce!).
Our marriage counselor, whom I hate, is named Peter Waterford, a mellow little guy with a goatee he loves to finger. (I saw him just the other day, in traffic, driving a new Lexus. I know we paid for that Lexus, so I certainly hope he’s enjoying it!) Anyway, at the marriage counselor’s urging, we went to Scotland, a nice trip which staved off the inevitable. Sandy played golf, I read. We both enjoyed ourselves. (It was somewhat like “parallel play,” which I mentioned in one of my very first Christmas letters when Andrew was a baby.) We avoided all serious discussions, all dangerous topics, as if they were water hazards on one of those gorgeous Scottish golf courses. Then we came back from Scotland and threw ourselves into our work: I, into my senior thesis; Sandy, into “Plantation,” his development down on the coast.
Though we were necessarily apart a good bit that year, I remained hopeful. In fact we both remained hopeful, I believe, and endlessly solicitous of each other, conducting nightly telephone conversations whenever we were apart (“How was your day?”—“Fine, dear, how was your day?” etc.) like nurses who keep on giving artificial respiration to a patient who has died.
This phase lasted until that girl’s mother called from down at the coast, looking for her. Her grandfather had had a stroke, and she should come home immediately. “She’s not here,” I kept saying, though the woman insisted, politely, that she was. “Isn’t that funny?” she said before she hung up. “I’ve got the name written down right here.”
I hung up and telephoned Sandy in Wilmington, where I got his answering machine. I could have stopped right there, never mentioning the incident to Sandy, but I did not. I could not. This time I had to push forward, to know. It gets pretty trite and sordid from here on out. I confronted him; he lied to me; I just couldn’t believe him, though I wanted to—oh, how I wanted to!
We went back to the marriage counselor, Peter Waterford, for that session I will never forget. We were all sitting around a gleaming mahogany table, kind of a conference table, in Peter Waterford’s lovely office way up in a high-rise building which overlooked north Raleigh. I could see I-40 and the Crabtree Valley Mall, far below. Peter Water-ford made a little tent of his fingers, leaned back in his chair, and looked at us in a gentle shrink-like way.
“I think it’s time to put all the cards out on the table,” he said. “Honesty may be painful at first, but it is ultimately healing, creative.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. I looked at Sandy.
Sandy knew exactly what he meant. Sandy kept running his hand through his thinning red hair, sort of patting his scalp, in an odd gesture I had never seen before.
“Sandy?” Peter Waterford pressed.
“You mean you want me to come right out and—”
“Yes,” Peter Waterford said ever so gently.
This is when Sandy told me that he had slept with over a dozen women who “didn’t count,” plus Dovie Birmingham, who did.
I seized upon this phrase. “What do you mean, ‘don’t count’?” It drove me wild.
“Oh, Mary, they didn’t mean anything to me, I’ve always loved you, you know that. I still love you. These were just girls at conventions, like that meeting I have to go to in Houston every year. You know it gets real old, real fast, being in a hotel room by yourself. . . .” Sandy went on and on, once he got started, pouring out a whole litany of transgressions which I can’t really remember now because it was just at that point that my mind began to wander. I can’t account for this, but it is true. I was trying to pay attention, I really was, but I kept thinking about other things, other times.
Sandy talked for a long time, and then finally he stopped talking.
I sat there.
“Mary,” Peter Waterford said.
“What?” I said.
Peter Waterford is one of those people who says your name too much, I suppose he thinks it establishes intimacy or something. “Mary, in spite of his obvious pain and embarrassment, Sandy has been totally honest with you. He wants to make a clean sweep of the past, Mary. He wants to establish a brand new relationship with you. He wants to begin again, Mary.”
I sat there. I was thinking about a time years and years ago when Joe and I were little, making Easter baskets in the dime store with Mama and Daddy and all the women who worked there. I have no idea why this particular day came so vividly into my mind at that moment.
“It’s time to put all your cards out on the table now, Mary,” Peter Waterford was saying.
I shook my head, unable to speak.
Sandy was staring at me.
“Just play the hand you’ve got, Mary,” Peter Waterford said.
Suddenly the whole card-game metaphor struck me as unbelievable, a ridiculous way for grown-up people to act.
I grinned at them both. “I fold,” I said.
Sandy lurched forward in his chair. “Mary,” he started.
I stood up. “I’m not playing this game anymore,” I said, and left before either of them could stop me. Having never actually slept with poor Gerald Ruffin, I had nothing to put out on the table anyway, but I wasn’t about to admit it. Anyway, I was sure—I am sure—that there was more love, more concern and care and feeling, in my relationship with Gerald Ruffin than in all of Sandy’s affairs put together. This is the truth. It is my story, and it is true, too. Lots of things are true: that I loved Sandy with all my heart and gave him my pretty years, that he loved me as well, that I am the only person in the whole world who knows or ever will know many things about him, large and small, such as that he runs down his shoes in the back and does not ever read books and is terrified of cats and will buy that horrible chocolate cereal and eat it if left in a house by himself. I know he cried all night when Andrew told us he was gay but since that time has done his very best to adjust to it, going so far as to blow up at Johnny Cook who once asked Sandy if he thought he’d ever be able to “forgive” Andrew. “Forgive him, hell!” Sandy exploded. “What are you talking about? What have I got to forgive him for?” an attitude which would surprise most people who know him. Sandy looks like a stereotype but he’s not. Maybe nobody’s a stereotype once you really get to know them, but this gets harder and harder the older we get, it seems to me. Too much ground to cover, too much to learn.
I’m probably a stereotype myself, come to think of it, one of those women you see on every college campus these days, those fiftyish women with half-frame reading glasses and denim skirts and Aerosole shoes, streaked hair pulled back in a ponytail, kicking along through the leaves, on fire with Woolf or whoever.
That’s me.
I’m a stereotype too.
But at least I’m not a fat stereotype any longer, having magically dropped those 20 pounds of “divorce weight,” as Marybeth calls it. I have emerged with cheekbones to die for, not that anybody cares . . . oh, that sounded bitter. I am not bitter, actually. I truly believe that Sandy is doing the best he can. We all do, don’t we? We do the very best we can. We “keep on keeping on,” as Mama used to say.
In fact I am having a little group of my women friends from school over for lunch tomorrow, just something really simple (shrimp salad). They have been such an endless source of support for me, as have you all.
Now I want to end this nearly endless Christmas letter by sharing something with you. I want to tell you what came into my mind at that moment in the marriage counselor’s office, the moment when I did not put any cards on the table, the moment before I walked out. It was a little memory, that’s all, an image from my childhood.
It is a cold dark Sunday afternoon, several weeks before Easter. Mama and Daddy have taken Joe and me to the dime store with them, to “help make the Easter baskets.” All the women who work in the store are there too, and lots of toys, and lots of candy. The women form themselves into an informal assembly line, laughing and gossiping among themselves. They’re wearing slacks and tennis shoes. They’re drinking coffee. It’s almost a party atmosphere. As “helpers,” Joe and I don’t last long. We stuff ourselves with candy and then crawl into a big open cardboard box of pink cellophane straw where we sleep all afternoon while the straw shifts and settles around us, eventually covering us entirely, so that no one can find us when it’s time to go. I wake up with Joe’s warm breath in my ear, his heavy little leg thrown over mine.
“Mary!” I hear them calling. “Joe!” Their voices sound far, far away. The overhead lights in the dime store glow down pink through the cellophane straw. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
“Mary! Joe!” It’s Mama, then Daddy calling. Joe makes a sleepy little noise in my ear. “Mary! Joe!” I know I have to answer them soon but I hold the moment as long as I can, me and Joe all safe and secure in our own bright world, sought by those who love us. I am thinking, I will remember this. I will always remember this.
I have, too. And it is my Christmas gift to you tonight, this perfect moment, as real as the psychological strip poker game in the marriage counselor’s office with which it coexisted, another story, yet both of them happening and happening and happening forever at the very same time, and both of them true.
Merry Christmas.
Love,
Mary
Happy New Year 1995 to my Invaluable Friends!
After delivering myself of that interminable epistle last year, I had decided not to write this year—a decision in line with my decision not to “do Christmas” in a big way either, as Sandy chose to remarry on Christmas Eve (she’s 21 years younger!) and all the kids except Andrew were involved in that. Andrew wasn’t able to get here in time due to prior commitments.
Anyway, Sandy’s wedding was in that big Episcopal Church downtown, six bridesmaids including Melanie and Claire, the whole bit. The bride wore a long white dress, and why not? It’s her first wedding, poor thing. I rented some good videos (The Dead and that wonderful Canadian thing about the old women on the bus), then took a cold lovely walk around the block (big stars, clouds of breath). All the houses I passed either had a full-bore Christmas tableau visible in the windows (family, tree) or nothing at all—dark, locked up. I was trying to manage something in between, which is hard here in America, I suppose. I came home half frozen, brewed a pot of tea, and talked to some of you on the phone.
Near midnight, just as I was turning off the lights, here they came! “dressed to the nines” and looking wonderful. First to arrive were Melanie and her friend Bruce, Melanie in her red satin bridesmaid’s dress, something she would never choose to wear though it was very becoming, I must say, and Bruce in a tuxedo (beyond belief, he plays in an alternative rock band named Steel Wool) though I did think Bruce could have shaved a little better. (But they like a little stubble, don’t they? I guess it’s “in” now.) Anyway, I really enjoyed this, as it has been years since I have seen Melanie dressed up! She always wears black. For the wedding, she had pulled all that long curly red hair up into a knot on the top of her head. She looked positively pre-Raphaelite! Of course she got back into her jeans in short order. Even though it was so late, she just couldn’t wait to show me a literary magazine containing her first published poem. The magazine is named Bitteroot and the poem is named “Evening Light, Pawley’s Island.” I’m no judge, but I think it’s wonderful. (It doesn’t rhyme, of course.)
Then here came Claire, Don, and Don’s adorable little girls, ages 8 and 5 (they remind me of you and me, Ruthie). The girls were so tired, they were practically sleepwalking. I had planned for them to sleep on the futon in my own bedroom, so Claire and Don could have some privacy. Plus, I knew I would enjoy waking up with those little girls on Christmas morning. I was struck by Claire and Don’s efficiency, putting the girls to bed, putting out their “Santa Claus” in the living room—it’s as if they have already become an old married couple, without the honeymoon. I feel like I’m more interested in their “romance” than they are!
Next appeared James with yet another girlfriend, this one tall and languid, from South Carolina. (New rule: I’m not going to “get to know” each one until she’s been around at least 3 months.) But of course, she’s adorable. They’re all adorable, they all fall in love with James, and I don’t blame them. He has become a very impressive young man. I can’t imagine him ever settling down—but they all stay single a lot longer now, don’t they? It seems to me that adolescence extends to age 30 at least! (But maybe that’s better, I don’t know: it’s certainly true that many of our own decisions were disastrous.. . .)
Anyway, we all met Adrienne, James’s new girlfriend, who turns out to be a psychologist-in-the-making, a really interesting young woman—maybe she’ll be the one. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. (Whoops—there I go again! Getting involved. It’s hard, isn’t it? Whoever thought it would be so hard? As a child, I thought adults were, by definition, wiser than we were—now I realize that they were just older, and that wisdom is not something that will descend upon us at a certain age, that it will not descend upon us at all, in fact.)
Of course I was dying to ask about the wedding, but I am proud to tell you that I did not, not once! The kids raided the kitchen just as if they’d had nothing at all to eat at the reception—“Well, Mom,” Claire said, “it was hours ago!” They downed huge Dagwood-style ham sandwiches and milk, and it was about one-thirty before we all got to bed.
Imagine my surprise when I was awakened at two A.M. by a loud banging noise downstairs. At first I was terrified. Then I heard a muffled laugh, and another banging noise— which I recognized, this time, as coming from my own kitchen—the sound of banging pots and pans. I turned on a light and checked the little girls, who had not stirred. Then I threw on a robe and stumbled downstairs.
“Hi, Mom!” Andrew stood in the kitchen door to greet me, filling it up. He gave me a good big hug. Andrew looked great, by the way—very tan, very fit. One of those new spiky haircuts.
“Mary! I’m so glad to see you!” Phil was wearing one of my old aprons.
“What in the world are you doing? Why don’t you go back to bed?”
“Mom. . .” Andrew waved a box of Rice Chex in the air. “We’re making the Sticks and Stones. We brought all the ingredients on the plane with us.”
“You didn’t!”
“Oh, but we did!”
I started laughing so hard I had to sit down. “You crazy things! Whatever made you think of that?”
Andrew looked indignant. “Well, Mom, somebody’s got to do it!”
And so we had a very merry Christmas 1994, and hope you did too.
Love,
Mary
Yield: 4 dozen cookies
½ cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, at room temperature
2 c. light brown sugar
1 egg, well beaten
1 teas. vanilla extract
1 cup self-rising flour
1 cup benne seeds (sesame)
1. Cream together butter and sugar in a large bowl. Add the egg and vanilla and mix well. Add flour and benne seed, mixing well after each addition.
2. Roll dough into 6 1-inch cylinders and freeze until ready to bake.
3. Preheat oven to 325°. Line baking sheets with aluminum foil.
4. Slice frozen dough thin and bake 8-10 min. Let the cookies cool thoroughly before removing them from the aluminum foil.
(From Adrienne Ravenel)