There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me (39 page)

They were all great. Once I got over the fact that I did not think any of them had paid attention to their best friend’s vows, I laughed harder than anybody. Dad got up to make a toast. He was always
tremendous at making toasts and was warm and funny and even got a bit teary. He held out his glass and you could hear a pin drop. I knew he would not drink its contents because he had given up drinking a while earlier.

My eye was immediately drawn to his beautiful hand with his gold bracelet and crest ring, and I suddenly saw my father through a child’s eyes. He held his pinky slightly extended, not from affectation but from necessity. His hands were just too big to fit the stem. He explained how impressed he had been that Chris had asked for his permission and he was comforted that I had found a man who made me so relaxed and happy. It was a beautiful moment.

But the next thing I knew, the owner of this stunning estate, who was also named Terry (only spelled differently) and was also quite a larger-than-life character, was suddenly guiding my now drunk mother up toward the mike. They were both Leos and loved to be in control. They were quite a team. She must have thought it safer to accompany my mom in case something went awry. My heart sank.
Oh, Mama, please don’t do this. You are better than this.
She could never speak in public unless drinking. She actually could do very little without the numbness of liquor. She was so insecure about how she spoke and sounded that she lost her train of thought and would go vulgar so the shock value distracted everybody and counteracted everything. If she was sober when toasting, she would just say, “I love you with all my heart.” And then be done.

Hostess Terry explained she thought it would be funny for the two powerful Terrys to make a toast together. She said something first and then it was Mom’s turn. I started to feel like I was in the middle of a car accident right before impact. I heard nothing and my vision narrowed to a pinpoint. All I saw were my mother’s red lips moving. She bizarrely made the toast about her and I began to clap the second I regained my hearing and felt the first pause between her (slurred)
words. Mom brought attention to this vaudeville hook, this gong-show gong she said I was wielding, and blurted out some remark regarding my being rude as usual.

“Sure, look at her trying to get rid of the old lady. It’s OK, I’m almost done.”

I just wanted it over so she would not embarrass herself. I was not angry, but I was humiliated for her. I was so pained to see Mom doing this in front of my father and Didi. She did end with something sweet but I knew she had just perpetuated her already less-than-stellar reputation. For the first time in my life I suddenly felt strangely jealous of my stepmother, because unlike my mother, she easily commanded
more respect. Why hadn’t Mom allowed her last impression from lunch to be her new image? Thank God Mom did not mention my father’s wife, who remained reticent and graceful as usual.

Chris was ultimately OK with it all because his friends were funny and my dad laughed his booming laugh, which resonated throughout the tent. The comedians all mentioned that they were in a gazillion-dollar estate and they had all been led to a tent in order to bypass the house entirely. That was my plan, and even though I missed being surrounded by the fantasy of luxury, I would breathe easier because of my decision.

In the end, however, Chris’s friend did steal the Cuban cigars and I would get a call late that night from the police regarding my infamous drunk mother.

Chris and I had met up with some friends after all the festivities and were enjoying the warm weather and the water when I got a call that the police had been called to the house because my mom was being disorderly. I don’t know who called them, but clearly she needed some kind of help. The medics asked her a series of questions. Of course she knew the answer to each one. She could access names, dates, numbers, and so on. So fuck all of you, she was fine!

Terry Kramer had seemingly no intention of pressing charges. Because Mom had been on private property, there was nothing anyone could do. Chris and I were told that Mom had gone to her room and things had calmed down. I was absolutely mortified and grossed out and had lost all respect in a way I had never experienced before. I did not care how sad or sick she was. It was outrageous and selfish and unfair for her to do this to our generous hostess, and on her only daughter’s wedding day. Mom was burying herself, and all hopes I held of the Teri Terrific from lunch becoming her new and improved image were dashed.

Chris and I left for Bali on our honeymoon. I did not look back until I had to. I have no memory of how she got home but knew she
would figure it out. I remembered Paris and Big Sur and her disappearing into the dark and wandering on a highway in the middle of nowhere while on a book tour in some city. And I remembered her inevitable reappearances when you thought it impossible. She would do what she wanted and get back to where she was headed when she was good and ready. Her wake or those caught up in it never concerned her. She was her own riptide.

Mom made alienating herself from people her personal art form. She did it so consistently and so often with those she loved that she found herself decidedly alone and isolated with the booze. She could hurt people like no other. I believe it was because her capacity to love was immeasurable. She knew how to hook into people and register with them deeply, but if it got too close or she felt an ounce of vulnerability, she would lash out. I was the only one who kept returning for both the love and the lashes. She was, as always, my mom.

•   •   •

Chris and I wanted to start a family as soon as possible, but it would not be as easy as we had hoped. We had
not
been actively trying to get pregnant, but for the past two years we had discussed being fine even if I were to become a pregnant bride (and thus need to alter my wedding dress). It had not happened as of yet and we assumed it was because of our busy schedules and stress. We had not really factored in my cervix because surgery had been successful, and the threat of cancer had been our main focus.

Upon consulting with a doctor, we learned that because so much of my cervix had been removed, it was proving almost impossible for me to become pregnant naturally. We immediately started the process of IVF. It was a crazy experience with hormones and drugs and shots. But after the first successful transfer of my fertilized eggs, I became pregnant. We were so thrilled, we told all our friends and relatives. Mom sounded teary on the phone and offered up a name for the
baby. She assumed it would be a girl and we should name her Willow. We thought it was too soon to pick names. Not because of losing the baby, but because we needed to do my favorite thing and make lists!

Within three months, I was writhing in our bedroom, enduring an insanely surreal and painful miscarriage. By the time the night was over I had banned Chris from coming near me, only allowing our new dog, Darla, to sleep at my feet. I was exhausted and angry.

I was again different after that night. I lost innocence and a belief that everything would turn out OK. Like most children, when I was a little kid I had an incredibly naïve belief that all things would be positive and work out the way I wanted. I believed perpetually that my mother would one day stop drinking and be healthy and happy because she was sober. I held on tightly to that hope. I even believed that if I had babies Mom would become a sweet, happy, fun-loving little old grandmother.

I always knew I wanted to be a mother, but I also believed that being a mother would give me freedom—freedom from my mother’s drinking and the hurt she caused me. I believed I would need less from her and be freer to have compassion for her while personally remaining safe. My energy could be redirected.

For some reason, after all the disappointments regarding her drinking and my being let down, I held on to the belief that if I had a baby, it would heal and right everything. There was no connection except in the expectation I placed on these possibilities with all my heart. When I lost this baby, I was heartbroken. I felt as if I had finally been defeated and I was not slated for conventional happiness.

I became convinced that I was not allowed to be normal and that I would not be allowed to have babies. I got very dark.

My first call the next day was to my mother. She was very sad but quickly added that as long as I was OK, that was what mattered. We would have another. And that was it. She had no other words of empathy.

I could not believe the pauses on the other end of the phone.

“Mom, are you sure there is not anything you want to tell me?”

“Nope.”

“Well, OK. I love you, Mama.”

“I love you, too, sweetheart.”

I hung up and finally got really angry.

Wasn’t this the moment when the mother was supposed to say to her grieving child some words of empathy or compassion from her own experience? We’d hardly talked about the mysterious Baby John since my outburst all those years ago, but I knew Mom, too, had experienced some kind of a loss and she might be able to identify with me or offer support.

And even if Mom had no connection to such a personal loss, wasn’t she supposed to come up with something like “Oh, honey, it is much more common than you think. It’s your body’s way of telling you the baby was not strong enough.” Or even, “There is another angel in heaven, my darling.”

I just couldn’t believe that she could not finally come clean about the baby boy she had supposedly lost after delivery. I was in pain and sad and I had nowhere to turn.

I dialed her house once again. “Mom, are you sure there is
nothing
you want to share with me at this moment in my life?”

“Nope, not that I can think of.”

“OK, well, can I ask you a question?

“Sure.”

“Was there ever a baby . . .”

Pause.

“Was there . . . like, a boy . . .”

“Ah, why would you want to talk about such things?”

“Well is there a . . . grave?”

“Maybe.”

OK, then, if this is so painful for her that she can’t even help her
only daughter not feel so alone, at a devastating time like this, then . . . I got nothin’.

I let her off the hook and never brought it up to her again. I would never know any more while my mother was still alive and physically able to communicate.

We would go through six IVF attempts after the first successful transfer. The difference was that because of the violence of the miscarriage, the scar tissue on my cervix had been stretched enough for me to get pregnant vaginally. The first successful attempt at implantation had been completed via my belly button. This would be the possible spiritual “reason” for the loss. By the time we got to the sixth try, we were exasperated. I had had some frozen embryos and some were fresh (six in all), and I could barely take it anymore.

I told the doctor I did not care if I had triplets; I wanted all six to be implanted in me and we would see. Lucky seven it was, and we finally returned home from a routine visit with a positive pregnancy test. And miraculously only one took. And unbelievably, the one embryo strong enough to make it had been a member of the original bunch. She had been frozen for two whole years.

This time we kept it a secret until we heard the heartbeat.

We called our parents during the sonogram and put the phone up to the machine to hear the heart. My mom recognized the sound immediately and began to cry. “Oh, my darling, I’m so happy for you.” (Probably just for me—she didn’t mention “that man” [Mom’s favorite moniker for Chris] to whom I was married.) My dad thought it was a dog panting. We shared the good news with a slightly tempered excitement simply because of the long journey we had been on to get here. We did all the tests, including the amniocentesis, and we were relieved every time we got good news. When I got the formal call that the amnio had been normal, I burst into tears. Chris’s parents were in town and we were having pizza at John’s, uptown. I nervously picked up the call, and when I hung up, I was going to be a mother.

I don’t remember telling my mom about the amnio. I also don’t remember ever letting my mother feel my belly when the baby was moving. It seemed too physically intimate.

Chris and I bought a loft in SoHo with great light. The plan had been to stay in LA as long as possible because Chris had a job there and then come to New York City later in my third trimester. I wanted our baby to be born in New York City and Chris was on board. Plus, I was considered a high-risk pregnancy because of my compromised cervix, and the doctor did not want me doing too much traveling. I always loved that term:
compromised cervix
. As if my cervix had been involved in a lengthy legal negotiation and had been forced to reach some settlement. Well. It was better than the word
incompetent
, so I took it.

This high-risk state also meant that I could not visit my sick father. I needed a specialist in these types of deliveries and nobody wanted to put me or the baby in jeopardy.

Three weeks before leaving for New York City to deliver my baby, I was at the LA dog park saying bye to some friends when my cell phone rang. It was my stepsister.