And here I am on the Upper West Side again, living in an apartment as beautiful as a Russian Easter egg, surrounded by the things my mother bought at auction when I was growing up on the Drive, with Fremo’s painting on one wall, the markets and shops on Broadway beckoning, and especially the people, the parade I join daily, melting into the stream. A sea of baby strollers and old people with walkers and electric wheelchairs and schoolchildren, protected as I never needed to be, the beautiful men and women, white, Asian, black, with their strong gym bodies, creating a parade of life as I walk down to Zabar’s and back. I look down the wide streets. There are no children sitting on the steps, playing in the streets, not anymore. Not like 148th Street.
The daughter Joey and I adopted from Thailand, Belinda, and her husband, Jay Jones, have two girls, Rachel, eleven, and Leah (named for me), eight, half African American, half Thai. They live in New Jersey.
Dinah left Hollywood with her husband, Arthur Mortell, and three sons—twins, Oliver and Desi, nine, and sixteen-year-old Dashiell. They live happily ever after on Bainbridge Island, Washington. When I need advice, Dinah is my go-to girl.
Dinah flew here to New York City from Bainbridge Island this past Christmas, Dinah’s family and Belinda’s camping out on our living room floor. Sunday morning, I woke and padded to the kitchen in my white cotton nightgown. It was eleven a.m.; Dinah was to leave for the airport at two p.m. For two hours we talked in the kitchen. The heart of our house, the kitchen. We nodded across the generations, across the years. Belinda, Dinah, and me, with the grand-girls and -boys in and out. And the sweet sound of nine-year-old Desi playing his violin floated in. Phyllis making prosciutto sandwiches for Belinda, Dinah picking up lox and cream cheese on bagels from Murray’s deli around the corner on Broadway for the plane ride home. Busy—leaving.
We sat across the dining room table—looked at each other, the tomato and me.
“Joey,” I said, “look what we did!”
The family we created surrounded us.