April 1st1967
The weather is beautiful today.Mild. In the 70s. My father would have loved this weather. My mom liked it hotter. Funny, I can think about them in little bursts now without wanting to weep or crawl into bed. I think they would be proud of me, for getting away from my uncle, for doing things with myself day in and day out. They were busy, smart, studious—yes, that’sa funny word but that is what they were, future me, in case you’ve forgotten—and they would like that I was being that way. Even if they’d thought I would have a more studious life than I am actually having and they’d be sort of shocked that I am eighteen and married.
I wondered while I folded shirts this week what they would make of my life. Of my being in the Life. I will capitalize it because it seems the thing to do. My father was a very open-minded person. He would have found it fascinating that this has existed in plain sight for so long. That people, even people who left the Life, seem happy to protect it. He might not be thrilled I was living a life where I had to lie to everyone.
Last night, as I cuddled with Victor and he did that thing I love so much where he played with my hair, he asked me if I was unhappy, if I wanted to go back to Louisiana where we could just be without worry about what others might think or say. I told him no. I didn’t want to go back there. It was scary to me. The longer I’m away from the place the more I’m glad that I left it. I don’t think a single person there tells the truth ever. They lie to themselves. I can’t say that to my Lents. They don’t hate it like that. They want their kids to spend summers there and to visit for holidays, to sometimes have some of those people here in our home—our safe home that I have painted red.
Oh how I am going on tonight.
Kids. I am once again not pregnant.
The store is booming and that is something, especially since my husbands have all started to notice that they can’t do it without me. I’m so good at handling the floor that Nathaniel doesn’t have to come out anymore at all and can concern himself with things in the back office, which he prefers greatly.
I watch the women who come in, the young wealthy women who shop at our place. I’m grateful for their business, but I can’timagine being them. It’s not like they went and participated in the Be In Central Park last week. Maybe it was more than just last week, maybe it was two weeks? I’m losing time.
I need to go to bed. Our days start very early.
DL
I rose from my chair,listening to the whoosh of the IV in her arm that was delivering whatever medicine kept her comfortable. How had this happened so fast? Four months ago she seemed fine. Maybe the key word was seemed.
On quiet feet I walked over to where someone had placed her framed pictures. They were close enough she could see them if she looked in that direction. I’d never seen them before so they must have been in her bedroom in Manhattan, her private sanctum I had never visited because it hadn’t seemed inappropriate.
There she was as a young woman standing in front of Lents. She wore a suit that showed her legs, and her hair was cutely fashioned with a clip. She had one hand on her hip, and she smiled brightly. I’d never seen the department store she spoke of in her journals. But there it was. On the frame was written 1967 so it wasn’t far off from where I’d been reading. That was amazing.
I looked at the other photos that stood there. She held a baby in one but looked a great deal older. She smiled at the camera. The frame had been labeled. Dina and Stephen. 1985. He was the third oldest. They’d all been a year apart. That had made her thirty-six. She kept mentioning not being pregnant. That wasn’t going to happen for her for some time. She’d said twenty yearsone time when we spoke, but it wasn’t quite that. Maybe she rounded up.
She held a blond-haired little boy and pointed at the sky in another picture. Dina and Kit. 1989. He looked to be about six or seven. The next one was Dina kissing a toddler. There was no label to indicate the year, but it said Dina and Eric. He had curly hair. The last one was a young man holding up a ribbon, and she had her arm around him. Dina and Daniel. What had he won? She had obviously been very proud.
The next row was different. The first one read Store 2, Dina and the Boys. It was Dina with who had to be her husbands. All four of them smiling at the camera. 1969. So they had really moved fast. Maybe that was because Nathaniel had been allowed to just work the back office thanks to her help. The second one had Rosalind in a wedding dress. She was twenty years old. Blonde and gorgeous. Dina had her arm around her, she wore dark blue and they were both grinning. And the last one had her with my Lents—to steal a phrase from her journal. They were babies. Or at least Phoenix was. He had chubby cheeks and a big smile. Jeremy and Julian wore matching outfits on both her sides, a blue sailor kind of a look and Barrett stood grinning next to her. It read, My Precious Loves.
Okay. The tears started, and I wiped them away. She and I would never have a photo together, and it was stupid to even think about that. She’d only have known me for seven months or so when all was said and done. I wasn’t that important in her story. Even if she was going to be huge in mine.
A hand touched my arm, and I managed not to gasp. It was Rosalind. She smiled at me. In a low voice, she spoke, “I used to love to go into her room and see all her photos. I’m not surprised she picked these to bring. She has shelves full of them in her room at home. These are all so early. Except the boys.” She lifted up that frame and stared at her sons. What did she rememberwhen she looked at that? It would be ten years before her life would blow up and change to almost unrecognizable. Rosalind set it down. “She used to keep them so we could have date nights. It was such a gift. I don’t know if I appreciated it enough at the time. I think I was selfish and thought it was just what grandmothers should do or something. My own mother—well, may be best left unsaid. Anyway, when I look back I should have been dropping to my knees in thanks to Dina.”
“Well that would have been awkward.” Dina’s voice made us both jump and then Rosalind laughed.
“Leave it to you to hear that.” She took her mother-in-law’s hand. “Did I say thank you enough?”
Dina waved her hand. Even like this, she was still Dina. “More than.” Rosalind laughed as we both turned around. From her bed, Dina spoke again. “You have always been lovely to me. Always.”
She shook her head. “Let’s face it, I haven’t been much of a mother. Thank god the boys had you.” Rosalind adjusted herself next to the bed. As I had done so many times in my life, I observed from the outside. “It’s too late now for me to mother them. I wish I had let myself fall apart earlier. If that had happened, maybe I could have been able to handle things better. Without you? Honestly there isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not grateful.”
She smiled and sat up a bit. “I thought I would be stronger today. Listen to me, the boys may not need you to mother them anymore, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t somebody who could use a little mothering.”
They stared at each other for a second. Who did she mean? I wasn’t usually dense, but I absolutely had no idea.
Rosalind turned in her chair. “Come sit, Alatheia. I interrupted your time. Join us. Please.”
On leaden feet—the kind that only came from wondering if I wasn’t really welcome—I sat by Dina’s bedside.
She met my gaze. “Is that my journal?”
“Yes, I’m trying to read them more quickly. I’ll type it tonight.”
Dina lifted her brows. “You know what I would love? Can you read me some of it? What I wrote? Can you? Maybe that would make me feel like they were here?”
My heart sank. “I would love to more than anything. You may not know this but one of the things about me is that I’m very dyslexic. I can’t read aloud. Not unless I practice a lot beforehand. I really won’t be able to.”
