Born with Teeth: A Memoir (19 page)

It was generally at this moment, when the drinks were winding down and the children had been put to bed, that Robert chose to make his entrance, bedecked in his running clothes, bandanna around his forehead, dripping with perspiration, fresh from a five-mile run. If the invitation was for seven, Robert
invariably loped off around six fifteen, which by necessity protracted the cocktail hour until, by the time Robert had showered, changed, and rejoined us, dinner was served late, tepid, and to a group of inebriated and slightly irritable guests.

Spearing a limp shrimp with his fork, Robert would say, “And what, I wonder, is this mystery fish?”

Later, in the kitchen, while dumping the “mystery fish” into the trash, Mary Kay would come in and, putting her arm around me, whisper in my ear, “Well, I thought it was delicious.”

The Westside of Los Angeles was dominated by industry professionals, and many of these men chose the soccer field as a means of expressing their paternal integrity. Robert took to coaching with a singularity of focus I have seldom seen matched. He whipped those little boys into fighting shape within weeks. Every Saturday was spent at the soccer field, from early morning until dusk. It was relentless, joyless, and, in keeping with the spirit of the privileged Westside, the unspoken mantra was
Win, or else.

The boys were now in grade school, and it was made clear to me by the association of devoted mothers at Saint Martin of Tours that it would behoove me to spend a little less time on my career and a little more time helping to shape the futures of our beloved children. To this end, I taught a poetry class to Alec’s second grade and Ian’s third grade for six months. I chose Emily Dickinson as the poet who I thought would best enlighten these youngsters, and they responded to my teaching methods with joyful abandon. The goal was to understand the poem by acting it out, and so, inevitably, the classroom erupted in a chaos of overturned desks, paper airplanes sailing through the air, children leaping onto the teacher’s desk, shouting, “ ‘I’m
nobody, who are you!
’ ” Wild laughter, crocodile tears, startlingly passionate embraces upon “ ‘Then there’s a
pair
of us, don’t
tell!” Then, ardently whispered, “ ‘They’d
banish
us, you know.’ ” At the end of the semester the principal thanked me for my efforts and, leaning in to take my hand, said, “I just can’t wait to see what you’ll do next—on television.”

The compulsion to work was unremitting, an unscratchable and often unbearable itch. Everyday life, in all its sameness, was not nearly as rich or exciting as success, and in an industry town, this meant that personal stardom was every bit as significant as personal decency and certainly more relevant. L.A. was a laboratory designed to breed and advance success in the motion-picture industry, which is why thousands of people spent whole days in their cars, searching for impossibly hidden offices, labyrinthine studios, obscure trailers in back lots, stalled for hours in freeway traffic, always late, always lost, always anxious. The burden of rejection weighed on the shoulders of everyone I met, surpassed only by the burden of hope.

Occasionally, there would be a flash of lightning, and all of that drudgery would be converted into a contract, the terms of which were so delightful it was all I could do to sit still and wait until someone in a three-piece suit passed me a pen.

HeartBeat
was an exceptional idea, inspired by true events, following the hardships and professional challenges of female doctors who decide to open a medical center in response to a health-care system that has failed to address many of the problems presented by female patients. I played the lead, Dr. Joanne Halloran, based on Dr. Karen Blanchard, who quickly became my personal ob-gyn. She allowed me to shadow her for a week in her Santa Monica clinic, observing as she performed Cesarean sections and deliveries, listening quietly during patient consultations. I was captivated by her skill and sense of self, and I learned that an excellent doctor, though exhausted and perhaps frustrated, will always maintain her composure in the face of bad news, particularly when she is about to deliver that
news to an anxious patient. I tucked these lessons into my bag of tricks, used them to shape the character of Joanne Halloran, and had the time of my life. It was a series ahead of its time, written with audacity and intelligence by Sara Davidson, produced by Aaron Spelling and Esther Shapiro, and costarring Lynn Whitfield, Gail Strickland, and Laura Johnson. But like many precocious series, it was canceled after just two seasons.

To assuage my disappointment, I bought a house nestled in the San Jacinto Mountains in a village called Idyllwild. Robert was livid when I insisted that my name, and my name alone, be on the title. As we meandered through the back roads of that mountain community on our first trip to the house, there was a palpable chill in the car, but I was firm in my resolve and simply said to him, “You understand practicality and fairness as well as anyone I know, Robert. I am paying for the house, so it is only fair that I should own it, and I will maintain the house, so it is practical, as well.” He said nothing, but as we pulled into the driveway of our beautiful new weekend house, with its long and deep front porch sheltered by tall pine trees, a coolness had settled between us, and it prevailed through the long evening and into the days ahead.

One night, as I prepared to leave for the theater at the end of a long week, the phone rang. The private investigator I had called two weeks before announced himself. I asked him if he’d learned anything, and he replied, “Well, I’ll tell you this. Your daughter didn’t go to any couple in New York. She was moved out of state and adopted by a couple living in Massachusetts.” I was too stunned to speak. Finally, the man said, “It shouldn’t be too hard to find out who they are and exactly where they live.”

“Yes,” I responded, “I need to know.”

The man was quiet for a moment, then I heard him cough. “I can do that, but it will cost you.”

I had given him one payment already, and I realized, suddenly, that I was in dangerous, uncharted waters. I gripped the phone with a clammy hand. The blue vein on the inside of my wrist jumped. Lowering my voice, I said, “The cost has been high enough.”

Suddenly, the front door banged open downstairs, and my sons called out, “Mama!” I went to them and, looking at them sternly, said, “The time has come.” Ten minutes later, after the chase, the tackle, and the tumble, I put them in the tub and went to it with gusto, scrubbing first Ian, the more resistant, and then his brother. Predictably, they wailed as if they were being burned at the stake. When the worst of the torture was over, I sat on the rug in front of the bath tub and just looked at them. My two little beauties, suds in their ears, washcloths on their heads. So smart they were, so vital. I decided to tell them a story.

“Only, it’s a true story,” I whispered, “so you must remember that as I tell it. And I must have quiet, because it’s a very important story. Do you understand?” Both heads nodded, and Ian, very intense, leaned on the rim of the bathtub, head in hands. I told them the story of how I had, long before I’d met their father, had a baby, but that I wasn’t expecting to have a baby and that I didn’t think I could take care of her very well, and so I had finally, and very sadly, given her to another family to raise. “But I am looking for her, and I will not stop looking for her until I find her, and then you will meet her and she will be your sister. She is your sister, and you are her brothers.”

The boys stared at me, mesmerized, until finally Ian asked, “But is she
really
our sister?”

“Yes, darling, she is. I’m
her
mother, too.”

The boys seemed to be considering this when Robert suddenly appeared at the bathroom door and said, “I don’t really think that was necessary, do you?”

I called Sister Una McCormack the next morning and demanded an explanation.

“Why was my baby taken out of state and adopted by a couple I knew nothing about? Why did I have to learn this through a private detective? Why was I not told?”

Sister Una sensed the panic in my voice and tried to calm me.

“We should have informed you that your files were destroyed in a devastating fire last year but we didn’t want to add to your distress.”

This, to me, was simply amazing. I waited.

“And Cardinal Cooke made a special request regarding your baby, one that we could not have foreseen, and one that we needed to fulfill.”

“Above and beyond your promise to me—your
only
promise to me—that my baby would go to the couple I had chosen?”

To her credit, she did not equivocate.

“Terence Cardinal Cooke has the power to make or change policy within the Home Bureau. There is nothing more I can tell you.”

And, true to her word, that was the last thing she said to me before hanging up.

We lived well, but ours was a marriage without sympathy. We enjoyed our tribal affinity and encouraged this is in our sons, who, like their parents, took pride in physical courage and intellectual curiosity. Tenderness was something we were forced to leave behind. The construct of our marriage could not accommodate it. But, like most Irish-Americans, we were sentimental to the core.

At the beginning of our marriage, when I was very pregnant with Ian, Robert and I attended a fund-raiser at the home of a rich board member in Seattle. At the end of the meal, the host rose and told us that, in honor of our coming, he had prepared
a poem by the great W. B. Yeats. It was my favorite. Halfway through, the man stumbled, and when it was clear he had forgotten the verse, Robert nudged me. I stood up and, looking out over the candlelit room, finished the poem.

We were driving across the Mojave Desert, toward Mammoth Mountain. Ian was in the front seat, next to me, and Alec was in the back. It was late afternoon, I could feel the sun withdrawing, so I accelerated, hoping to make it to the mountain before dark. The energy in the car was high, lit by a strange, blue flame.

“Why isn’t Dad with us?” Ian demanded. “When is he coming up?”

“Yeah,” Alec chimed in, “where’s Dad?”

“Yeah, Mom, where’s Dad?” Ian asked again, but this time it was provocative. Threatening.

“Where’s Dad, where’s Dad?” Alec intoned from the backseat, and immediately his brother joined in. As the two of them chanted, and the sound grew in volume, the car filled with a wild, unbearable tension, and although I struggled to hold on, to maintain composure, to hold tight to the awful secret, the voices of my children cracked me open, and I suddenly swerved and pulled the car off the road.

Even then, I said to myself, there was time. Hold on. Hold on. But the sun had now turned a deep orange and sat heavily above the horizon. The children were silent, looking at me with dark, curious eyes. I turned off the ignition and turned to face them.

“Boys,” I said, softly, “I wanted to wait until we got home next week, when your father and I could do this together.”

Ian interrupted, loud and sharp. “Do
what
together?” Alec instinctively clapped his hands over his ears.

“Your father and I love you very much—”

“Ohhhh!” Ian shouted.

“We love you very much, but we have decided that we can’t live together anymore.”

“Ahhhhhhh!”
Ian screamed, and I forced my voice over his, stifling the sounds he was making.

“We haven’t been happy for some time, and we’ve decided to get a divorce.”

Ian was the first to go. He unsnapped his seatbelt and threw open the door. Then he started to run, as if running for his life, disappearing into the desert.

Alec, in the backseat, looked at me. He didn’t understand, he couldn’t at first grasp it. His eyes were pleading with mine. But that was no more than a moment. Then his little face fractured as quickly and shockingly as if I’d taken an ice pick to it.

He wept quietly, strapped into place. He did not howl, or shriek. He wept very quietly.

I looked out the window and could barely make out Ian’s figure as it melted into the sun. I knew that I must go after him, but for the moment, I could do nothing. It was enough to stay in that car, with my youngest child, and do nothing. It was enough.

It takes a very long time to sever a marriage in which children are involved. There is a table, two chairs, and a small pile of
bargaining chips. This is how it begins, but it ends with one chair in an empty room. The days darken. The children are sliced open and split down the middle. Someone takes an arm; someone takes a foot. The car pulling into the driveway on a Friday afternoon becomes a hearse, and everything is couched in lies. The house of old assumes a silence.

Friends come less often to visit. Lucy goes about her chores with a carefully composed face. She loves the boys with a devotion that barely conceals her ferocity. I am often in bed, reading or begging my agent to get me work. Work, now, is rare. I go to auditions and am so overcome with anxiety that I fall asleep in the chair before I am even called into the room. I need money, and there is none coming in. The divorce is expensive. California law is strict, because divorce is so common. The breadwinner pays the heaviest price, but in the end, it all equals out.

Mary Kay sits opposite me on the patio in the backyard, sipping white wine. Her face is fixed, gentle, and serene. She is an exceptionally good listener. I complain about the absence of work, of money, of trust. I tell her I’m fed up, at my wit’s end, just want out of this marriage, once and for all. She regards me with measured sympathy. All of my closest friends know I am having an affair with a Mexican bullfighter who, I am beginning to feel, spends considerably less time in the ring than I do. No one approves of this liaison, least of all myself, but I can’t seem to end it. He is adoring, weak, and always available.

I look at Mary Kay and suddenly am struck by an idea. “I’ll sell the house, we’ll move to an apartment in Westwood, I’ll get a day job, we’ll start over, the boys and I, and I’ll be free!” I am on my feet, almost shouting. It has been a year of whitecaps, breaking gray and relentless, and now I think I spot land. Mary Kay’s instinct is to urge caution, but I am already up and out of my chair and calling my real estate broker. I tell her to put the house on the market. In the same hour, I call my
business manager and demand to know how much cash I can get my hands on. She is startled, laughs uncertainly, says she’ll call me back.

When she does, I learn that all the ready money I have in the world is ten thousand dollars. Twenty years of steady work and I am left with half a pension, half a house, and ten grand in cash. I tell her to take it all out, divide half into bills and the other half into traveler’s checks.

“Why on earth do you need traveler’s checks?” my business manager asks, very curious indeed.

I think for a moment, and then I know exactly how to answer her. “I’ve decided to take the boys to Ireland for the summer.”

Mother was thrilled when I told her about the trip but did not suggest that I visit the ambassador in Dublin. “Her schedule is very full, and Jean’s a stickler for routine. But you should meet my friend Tim Hagan, who will be visiting Jean in Dublin at exactly the time you’ll be there.”

“We’re not going to Dublin, Mother,” I said. “We’re flying to Shannon and heading straight for Dingle.”

“Oh, too bad,” she responded, “because Tim is terrific. A wonderful friend, a good guy, I know you’d love him.”

“Oh, Mother, for God’s sake—” But she cut me off, insisting that he was strictly friendship material.

“You’d never go for him in a million years,” Mother declared.

“He’s a politician from
Cleveland,
for God’s sake,” I interrupted, “and besides, didn’t you imply that he’s otherwise engaged? Not to mention his allegiance to the Honorable Jean Smith.”

“Nothing of the kind, Kitten. Not everyone is consumed with lust, you know.”

“No,” I said, “but you’d agree that most interesting people have outsized libidos, wouldn’t you?”

Mother paused. “Well,
all
interesting men have impossible
sex drives, but the really intriguing women simply know how to play the game. Should I give him your number?”

“Who?”

“Tim Hagan, for heaven’s sake! A drink won’t kill you.”

My father, when visiting Ireland in the early seventies, stumbled into a pub in Dingle and discovered a woman there, tall and handsome, with a wide red mouth and a rich laugh, who poured him a whiskey and told him her name was Kate Ashe and that her husband was the publican. He fell in love on the spot and sent out an SOS to me and my brothers Tom and Joe to come to Ireland and judge for ourselves if we’d ever seen anyone so fair. We met in Dingle and convened in that pub, my brothers and I, and all of us were captivated by Kate’s charm, her vivacity, her curtain of thick black hair, the style with which she poured a pint of Guinness, and the elegant generosity of her spirit. We understood that the James Ashe pub on Main Street was to be our local when we visited Dingle, and that there would be none other.

Now, twenty years later, we pushed open the door of the pub, the boys and I, to get out of the rain, and were warmly greeted by Kate, who stood, as she always did, behind the bar, dispensing pints and wisdom with equal dexterity, a cigarette never far from her lips. On any other woman, it would have been unbecoming, the constant fag going to and from that too-red mouth, accompanied by the abrupt pulling of the Guinness handle, the quick and sometimes sloppy pouring of the whiskey, all choreographed over a sink of dirty glasses, but on Kate it was a natural and even glamorous fit. Her eyes lit up with mischief when she saw the boys, and she was already teasing them, telling them there was to be no turf fire in the cozy back room, there were no more bottles of orangeade to be had, and certainly not a bag of crisps to be found in all of Dingle. These
things she reported while popping the caps off bottles of orangeade, pulling bags of crisps from the rack over the bar, and leading the boys into the anteroom, where a turf fire glowed in the belly of the hearth and a dartboard hung like a round and hungry face on the wall. She handled the children easily, without artifice, and as a result they adored her.

I found a stool at the bar, and when Kate reemerged, I ordered a gin and bitter lemon.

“With the merest suggestion of ice,” Kate said, to which I replied, “Correct, madam, and many thanks.”

The usual suspects were gathered at the bar, as well as one or two tourists, who were easy to spot because of their eager, earnest faces and carefully nursed pints of beer. The regulars had their assigned seats, and I greeted them by name and asked how they were holding up.

“Pissing rain it is,” said the confirmed bachelor three stools down, whose tweed hat never left his head, whose wellies were always wet and spattered with mud, and who, as he glanced at me, clutched his pint with unnecessary intensity. He’d have a cigarette soon, then another pint, and then he’d be up and off his barstool with a sureness of purpose so abrupt as to seem almost comical. He’d had his pint, and now it was home to the farm. Like clockwork, it went. These were men of habit, who honored and respected habit, and were seeking nothing but the solace of a daily ritual in a warm, familiar pub with faces they knew and trusted. They spoke sparingly, smiled wryly, and systematically avoided intimacy of any kind. Wild and vivid daydreams of lust and longing could be dancing in their heads, and no one would ever know as they stubbed out their cigarettes, drained the last from their pint glass, and placed their coins on the bar. “I’m off,” they’d say, perhaps touching the bill of their caps, and then they’d be out the door, striding into the rain.

The phone rang in the room beyond the bar, a private room where Kate prepared the evening tea for her family. She disappeared down the three steps into her living room and reappeared moments later, a smile teasing the corners of her mouth.

“It’s for you,” she said, “a gentleman who says he’s a friend of your mother’s. Tim Hagan?”

I laughed, so unexpected was this phone call, on this day, at this hour.

I had spoken to the man before I’d left Los Angeles two weeks earlier, had liked the sound of his deep, rich voice, and so had told him where he could find me, if finding me was in the cards.

“You know, I love your mother,” he’d said, which had delighted me. Not many people had said that to me about my mother and meant it. She was not the sort of person who inspired this kind of sentiment.

“And do you also love the ambassador?”

A pause on the other end. “Yes, I’m full of love for the entire human race,” he replied, and we had laughed.

I picked up the phone in Kate’s living room. “Am I speaking to the man who loves my mother?”

“You’re speaking to the man who just arrived in Shannon and doesn’t know whether to go east to Dublin or to see if my dear friend’s daughter would like to meet and have a drink with me first.”

This presented a few problems. I couldn’t very well leave the boys to wreak havoc in the pub, Shannon was certainly too great a distance to travel for a drink with a stranger about whom I knew next to nothing, the car was low on gas, and it was raining.

“Excuse me for a moment, Tim,” I said, and holding my hand over the receiver shouted to Kate in the adjoining room, “What’s a good meeting point between here and Shannon? Anybody have an idea?”

Back like a shot came Kate’s voice. “Tell him to meet you at the Hotel Tralee in two hours!”

“Did you hear that?” I asked, into the phone.

“I heard it, and so did half the people in the airport. I’ll see you there in two hours. Meet me in the bar,” said Tim Hagan, with authority. And then he hung up.

I gathered Ian and Alec, called good-bye to Kate, found the lovely boy Owen with the sweet smile and sandy hair who lived down the lane, and asked him to take the boys fishing; it was marvelous to fish in the rain, and on rainy days in particular, I promised my sons, the dolphin Fungie could be seen leaping from the sea, and afterward, when they were wet and tired, they could all come back to the pub for fish and chips in front of a warm fire, and I would be there to meet them. This seemed to assuage the anxieties that I knew were percolating in my sons’ small but precocious brains.

I ran to the flat, traded my mac for a long and rather chic raincoat, wrapped a sheer scarf around my head, and jumped into the car. The rain had abated, and now it was only drizzling. I didn’t know why I felt compelled to step on the gas, but I zipped across Kerry like a deranged swallow and arrived in Tralee an hour later. I parked the car, glanced at myself in the mirror, and adjusted the scarf so that it covered my head, which made me feel like a cross between Tippi Hedren and Peter Sellers.

Inside, it was dark, cool, very quiet. I walked down the main corridor, sure-footed but silent on the path to the hotel pub. Ahead of me, I could see the shuttered windows of the bar, and I realized with a start that it was off hours and the pub would not open until two p.m. I stopped just short of the bar, and as I stood there wondering where this stranger might have taken himself, I suddenly heard a voice, rich and deep, calling, “Kate?” I turned, and there, sitting in a corner banquette, the
Irish
Times
spread out around him, was a broad-shouldered man with a warm, crooked smile.