Fate and Ms. Fortune (22 page)

“That’s crazy. Was she mad?”

“No…She said she knew all along and how could I ever think I could outsmart her? Hadn’t I ever heard of picking up the extension and eavesdropping?”

“Sounds just like her.” I laughed. “She used to do that to me all the time. Don’t you remember when Adam Gellner called to ask me to the prom and I said, Mom can I go? Click…”

“No, but anyway. Turns out she was very happy you were at the same school.”

“Then how come she never mentioned his name or told me to look him up?”

“Are you kiddin’? Back then she couldn’t give you a weather report without you trying to start a fight.”

“I remember…It’s just so bizarre…A psychic says one thing and my life is changed forever. Remember how badly I wanted to go to Maryland, but Mommy carried on that I’d be so much happier at Penn State? I swear, if I had known it was because she wanted me to find a husband…That is sick…Are you listening, Daddy?”

“I’m listening…I was just thinking. Wouldn’t it be something if that psychic turned out to be right and you did end up marrying Kenny?”

“Don’t put money on it. I can’t even get him to call me.”

“Well, I understand he’s a little
farblandzhet
right now. But one thing I’ve learned in life…Every day brings something unexpected…” His voice trailed off.

Amazing. Thirty years later, one little thing could still trigger memories of that fateful day.

“Look,” I said. “If Ken and I are supposed to be together, then it will happen. But I’m sure as hell not going calling that ungrateful putz.”

“It’s your life.” He sighed. “Besides, I just remembered you never met Kenny at college, so it turns out that that psychic lady was wrong about everything.”

“Wait. That’s not true. It turns out I did meet Ken at school…we just didn’t
know
it until now…”
Hello Annette? I know I doubted you, but help me out here. How does this whole destiny thing work exactly?

I
PUT UP A POT
of coffee (the way I liked it!) and checked in on my mother, who was still dozing. How innocent she looked when she wasn’t plotting to change the course of my life. And how neat this room could be kept when it wasn’t doubling as a shipping department for items I needed to sell on Craigslist.

We’re so different, I thought. If I had a room the size of Madison Square Garden, I would still be tripping over shoes and searching under piles of clothes for clean bras.

But what did Grandma Rita always say? The cleaner the room, the crazier the tenant?

That was certainly true of my mother, though I could see where in her distraught state, she might have convinced herself that keeping a tidy home would allow her to think she had control over her life.

Yet studying her peaceful expression, I wondered what troubled me more. That I was clueless to the extent she had struggled with depression, that I had been kept in the dark about our ties to a family with whom we shared a tragedy, or that my
future had been tampered with, like a lavatory smoke detector, just to fulfill a psychic prophecy?

It was none of the above. Something else was breaking my heart.

“Go away.” My mother swatted me. “I’m not done resting.”

“Oh, trust me. You are.” I kept shaking her.

I had questions, I told her. Dozens of them. But one that mattered the most. How could she live with herself knowing how unfair she’d been to my father? All these years he’d struggled to keep their marriage alive, knowing his angry wife didn’t share the same desire.

“You want to know how much he loves you?” I cried. “You walked out on him and he still wanted me to make sure you had enough money for your trip to Phoenix…So what if he wasn’t your dream date? He turned into a wonderful husband. A fantastic father…He worked his ass off so we had everything we needed…And look how hard he tried to get you back on friendly terms with Judy Danziger so you’d have a good friend again.”

“Fine.” She sat up and yawned. “I’ll join his fan club. When are the meetings?”

“This isn’t funny, Mommy. I’m tired of listening to you bitch about him, when you’ve been so mean to him, and he never complained.”

“Oh. So he’s Saint Harvey and I’m Sheila the Shrew?”

“I’m saying you weren’t the only one who lost a child. Daddy suffered as much as you. Maybe even more because he felt all the blame. But did you ever reach out to him? Tell him you loved him and you’d get through this together?”

“Why are you attacking me?” She waved her finger in my face. “You have no idea what went on between us…What did he do? Take out my violin and tell you his sob story?”

“All I’m saying is it’s so unfair that you never forgave him or stopped punishing him.”

When I was acting fresh as a kid, she was very fast with her slapping hand. But as this was my home, and I was taller, now her only defense was to reach for her cigarettes.

“Don’t you dare light that in here!”

“Uch! So many damn rules.” She grabbed her lighter and headed out the kitchen door.

“You mean like at our house?” I trailed behind. “Name a food I was allowed to have in my room…The answer is none. What time did I have to turn off the TV, even when I got to high school? Ten o’clock. What did you do if my laundry wasn’t sitting on the washing machine by Sunday night? You threw it on my bed…”

“This is what you want to fight about? The laundry?”

“I don’t want to fight. I want to tell you how I feel because if you think I’m going to support you when you walk out on Daddy for some man who—”

“Go to hell. The only reason you’re on his side is because you need his money.”

“Oh my God. That was so mean…You know how hard I’ve tried to handle everything on my own. I’m working three jobs, I sold my furniture and my car…Wait. Hold on. David used to do this to me, too. Turn everything around so it becomes about me and then you’re off the hook—”

“Oh, stop your bellyachin’…This is my life and my marriage.” She puffed. “If I want to make changes, I sure as hell don’t need your permission. Furthermore, your father and I had an understanding that you wouldn’t know about.”

“Really? You mean that he was to blame and you were never going to let him forget it?”

“Now you’re talking nonsense. Of course I forgave him…Not that it made a damn bit of difference…He still couldn’t get it up if his hoo-ha was attached to a forklift.”

“Mommy. Stop! I don’t want to hear that stuff.”

“No ma’am. Too late. You brought it up and if it’s the truth
you’re after, then start openin’ your ears and shuttin’ your trap.” Smoke billowed from her nostrils.

“Fine. Tell me your side of the story. Just…you know…leave the bedroom out of it.”

“Fine. ’Cause here is all you need to know…You’re damn right we both lived this nightmare. But you’re wrong about how it was. It wasn’t me who wouldn’t forgive your father. He wouldn’t forgive himself…He’d cry himself to sleep every night telling me he didn’t deserve to live, and why did God spare Abraham’s son, but not his own…

“You don’t know what I went through with his drinking, and then his heart problems, and then that lunatic partner he brought in from Chicago who cooked the books and nearly ran the practice into the ground, leaving us with a hundred grand in bills and a lawsuit that could have cost your father his license altogether.

“And I didn’t even get to the part where he was such a basket case, we couldn’t have sex…there I am. A woman in her prime with a husband who can’t even pee straight.”

I studied her through the mesh screen, trying to let some of what she was saying register, but not really comprehending the enormity of it because I was so focused on her skin, which despite her smoking, was remarkably creamy, and her almond-shaped eyes, which against all odds, remained lustrous after a lifetime of grief.

“What are you looking at?” She snuffed out her butt.

“Sorry. I was trying to let everything sink in. Your story is very different than Daddy’s.”

“Of course it’s different. He’s lying.”

“Maybe.” I laughed. “But it’s like Grandma always said. There’s your side and his side, and somewhere in between is the truth.”

“I suppose.” She came back inside and peered inside the
coffeepot. “Again with the weak coffee. Why don’t you just boil water, add food coloring, and call it even?”

“Why don’t you just settle the score with Daddy and go home?”

“No. I’m thinking of moving over to Phillip and Patti’s house.”

“Really? So you’re not running away to Phoenix?”

“Nah. It didn’t work out so good. Besides, who the hell wants to live in the desert? You spend two seconds outside and get baked like a potato.”

“But what about Marvin? And how come you never told me about the Danzigers? And did you really make me go to Penn State to find a husband? And what was the name of the psychic you went to on Long Island?”

“I can’t discuss this without real coffee.”

“Fine.” I dumped the pot. “Make it however you like…When are you going to tell Phillip the good news?”

“I’ll call him tonight.”

“Oh no.” I clapped. “Let me. Please let me.”

Forget giving a mouse a cookie. Give my mother Starbucks and she’ll tell you anything you want to know, and plenty you don’t. As we sat in my kitchen, interrupted only by phone calls and bathroom breaks, I learned more about my life in two hours than I had in two decades.

Seems my father’s closest companion was Jack Daniel’s, while my mom was on so many different antidepressants, Merck bought stock in her. He once thought about taking his life, she thought about helping him.

No wonder the house was like a quiet hotel with guests who kept to themselves. Every night my dad retreated to the basement and his map collection, while my mom holed up in the converted attic and her violin studio.

Meanwhile, the mutual threat of abandonment hovered like a slow-moving tropical depression. My father would reach a low point and tell my mother he put a deposit on a condo in Florida for himself, while she would wave the Marvin Teitlebaum flag in his face, claiming he would take her back in a heartbeat if he knew she was single.

But as with most threats, when all was said and done, more was said than done. And in their case, with good reason. They knew in their hearts that who but each other would understand their private hell? Not to mention, my father would wilt in Florida’s heat, while my mom had no idea if Marvin remembered her.

As it turned out, he did. Though it being forty years and a heart condition later, he could not remember why. What Marv did recall, however, was that he had several lady friends to whom he professed true love, so that upon his return from his tour of duty, at least one or two would still be interested in settling down with him.

Sheil did not take kindly to learning of this cruel deception, and made sure her good-bye included the wish that his pacemaker was made by the company that knew the wiring was faulty.

Frankly, hearing her recant these tales stunned me, not for the judicious retelling, but for the eye-opening revelations (so rare for secret agent mom). She had insisted on my attending Penn State because of a psychic’s prediction, though not the one having to do with meeting my future husband (it turned out the woman only mentioned this in passing). Instead Sheil banked on the omen that I would have a great college experience and leave with a diploma.

Naturally, I was grateful that my mother had managed to make good decisions on my behalf in spite of her troubles. Yet how disconcerting to realize I had grown up with such a myopic view of my world and that it took a psychic to bring reality into focus.

But what really irked me was how it was one thing to have a mother who shared nothing when you were a child. It was quite another to be a grown woman and still not qualify to be her confidante.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me how much you suffered after Todd?” I dumped the last of my coffee down the sink.

“Why? So you could turn around and blame me for screwing up your childhood?” She peered out the kitchen door as if the cigarette fairy was beckoning.

“I never said you screwed up my childhood…Can we please have one conversation where you don’t light up? I’m saying I would have appreciated some honesty. But God forbid anyone should ever know the truth about Sheila Holtz.”

“I’m plenty honest. I just think a person has a right to their privacy.” She fondled the cigarette pack on the kitchen table as if to say, “Mama’s comin’.”

“That’s right. You don’t show your tax returns to your neighbors, but it’s perfectly acceptable to discuss a family tragedy with your family.”

“It was no secret we lost a baby.”

“Only because Aunt Marilyn told me. It would have been better hearing it from you.”

“Oh please. What would have changed if I’d burdened you with my nightmare?”

“Are you kidding? It would have changed everything. I would have been more understanding. More sympathetic…All I remember is Daddy constantly worrying about you going off the deep end. I just never knew why…And what about me and Phillip? We couldn’t even fight without hearing, ‘Cut it out. Do you want your mother to end up in the hospital?’”

“That’s what you’re angry about? That you couldn’t deck Phillip? Believe me, Toots. Nothing I said would have made you do anything different. You were totally self-centered.”

“I was self-centered because you never let me in. And what’s
changed? Nada! Did you really think it was fair to keep it from me that you had cancer? And how should I feel knowing you didn’t want me to be there for you after your surgery? That’s what daughters are for.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake. It had nothing to do with not wanting you there. I just didn’t want to burden you because I was afraid
you
would go off the deep end. That’s what a mother is for. To protect her children.”

“When they’re little, fine. But hello. I’m an adult, which means I get to decide what I can and cannot handle…God, what is it with people who take advantage of you, then push you away when the relationship isn’t convenient?”

“When did I ever take advantage?”

“Forget it.” I looked out the window. “It’s pointless trying to talk to you…I just wish someone would explain to me how I always end up on the wait-and-see side of the relationship…why no one gives a damn about my feelings…I really have to stop putting up with this crap…I’m either in your life or out of your life, so don’t expect me to jump for joy every time you decide to show up after your little disappearing act.”

“Slow down, Toots. You lost me. I never disappeared on you.”

“And what did I ever do to deserve being treated like a servant? Do this for me and that for me. Run here, watch my dog, take in my mail…”

“Sounds to me like you got your wires crossed. Like that time I tried to jump my car battery and almost blew myself up…Who are you mad at exactly? Him or me?”

“What?”

“You’re going on and on about things I never did…I think you’re just getting out your anger with Kenny Boy.”

“I guess.”

“So is it safe to come out now?”

“No. I’m mad at both of you. In fact I’m mad at everyone…Have I ever told you how much I hate people?”

“Every day. Time to take the civil service exam.”

“Go have your cigarette.” I sighed. “This is getting me nowhere.”

“Well maybe not…It’s good to get angry. That’s the only way we ever vow to change.”

“Does that mean you’re going to change?”

“Hell no. Too late for me. But no reason you can’t go find fly boy, yank ’im by the ear like I used to do to Phillip, sit ’im down, tell ’im what’s what, and threaten to ban dessert for a year if he doesn’t shape up.”

“That’s the solution to my love life? Deny the guy pie?”

“It worked for your father.”

At the urging of my friend Dante Ferrete, a fellow stand-up, I was being dragged out of retirement. It had been a week since my mother had returned, but almost a month since I’d last performed. Had I forgotten that I’d been on a roll and was messing with my momentum?

Dante was right, of course. And it’s not that I didn’t want to get back out there. But I still had so much on my mind, namely that my mother had yet to pack her bags. Something to do with Phillip screaming that it would be a huge imposition, and she made them all nuts, and he was sick of this stupid game already and why didn’t she just go home where she belonged?