This is pure egotistical insanity and I’ll not lie down for it. It’s agarden club, for the love of the universe, a gathering of individuals for the purpose of discussing GARDENING, and Debbie Banks is not going to dictate the presentation material as a means to boost her own already-too-puffed-up ego. Why should her son present to us on matters of real estate? It has nothing to do with gardening whatsoever, and furthermore, I cannot think of a single one among us who gives a rat’s ass about the real estate market. None of us is moving. Debbie wants to parade her son out like a dog at the American Kennel Club because she thinks he’s God’s greatest gift to the world (do you remember how intolerable she was when he got into business school at Harvard, save me) and I’ll tell you a point of fact: that child has one thought in his little money-grubbing birdbrain, and that is old rich women and waterfront real estate. Do you know what? I bet Debbie is in on it! She’s no idiot, you know, she had a prenup before anyone knew what prenups were. She wants him to charm a bunch of old has-beens like us with his good looks and make him a bit of money, and she’s not doing it at my club. No thank you. HE WAS FLIRTING WITH MAUDE O’REILLY. Maude is eighty and she’s been smoking two packs a day since 1970, BUT she owns three acres just on the expensive side of the Naval Academy Bridge with a view of the steeple—I’m sure I don’t need to spell it out for you, Alice. Shameless. I’m refusing for the sake of the members. Certainly you can see that. Furthermore, how embarrassingly paltry of Debbie to discuss “overthrowing” the secretary of a garden club, why if it isn’t Napoleon Bonaparte herself—warm regards,
Sybil
Sybil Van Antwerp
17 Farney Road
Arnold, MD
21012
May 1, 2013
Hi Sybil,
I’ve enclosed a copy ofBlue Nightsfor you. I look forward to your review, as ever. Your thoughts on life and grief meant a great deal to me. The club of parents who have buried children is a membership I wish I did not own, but the sense of being seen is comforting.
I’m writing down notes here and there. This will amuse you—my nephew wants to make a documentary about me. I’m putting him off.
It seems as though the winter has gone for good and we’re into gorgeous New York spring now, all the trees in the parks flowering and the snow melted off. It’s my favorite time of year. Winters get harder as I age.
My best to your children, and yourself, with love,
Joan
May 13, 2013, for delivery May 15, 2013
Mr. Harry Landy
98 Dumbarton St. NW
Washington, DC 20007
May 13, 2013
Dearest Harry,
Your handwriting is improving. Well done. It makes very much of a difference in your letters. Not only are they more easily readable, but they seem more dignified. You are still often switching youri’s and youre’s, so you need to be careful there.
It is beyond my comprehension the lengths to which children will go in the name of cruelty, and I know you know this, but I want to repeat that when someone(s) treats you poorly, it is a reflection of him or herself and the misery within the heart of them. It doesn’t help a bit to hear that when you’re young, but later it will. My brother suffered at the hands of sadistic classmates for years. As a matter of fact, I wrote a letter to a child named Nathan Briggs pretending to be the vice president of the United States and threatened to put him in prison if he didn’t leave Felix alone—he bought it! Never bothered Felix again. We still laugh about that. And you know, regarding Felix, he endured torment as you do, but he is the smartest, kindest man, and he is HAPPY, and his life has turned out to be magnificent, so you’ll push through. It’s all you can do. I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about a musical artist who lives by a saying, which is: “F_ck the haters.” That is a filthy word; however the sentiment in such forceful simplicity is rather catching.
On the subject of high school. St. Joseph’s sounds like a fine school and I’m sure you will do very well there. My son Bruce had friends who attended. I recall it being known for a curriculum in the classical tradition, with the practice of math through the lens of logic rather than lumping maths and sciences together.
Regarding your questions, I’ll answer truthfully, but I wonder what has you so inquisitive all of a sudden. I was an English major in college, and a pretty good writer. Not knowing another direction to take that would marry writing with something practical and lucrative, I became a paralegal and after a few years of that, went to law school at the University of Virginia. From law school I went into private practice with that old judge who just died, that was before he was the judge, and then when he became judge I went with him to be his clerk (now that’s me breezing over something like 30 years of day-in-day-out work). These days I might have been a judge myself, but back then it wasn’t popular for women. Your father, who was very clever at Yale Law and wrote for the law review, came along to clerk for another judge on the bench directly out of law school when I’d already been there fifteen years or more, so I took him (your father) under my wing. There is no good explanation for our enduring friendship other than that your father is a smart, funny individual and he won me over with terrible jokes and sandwiches from a deli a block north of the courthouse. But your father was always destined for a bigger pond, so it wasn’t more than a few years before he was clerking in the federal courts, and then in private practice, and then his own judgeship.
You asked where I’m from. I grew up all about Pennsylvania, some in Ohio, and down to Maryland eventually. My mother grew up in Arizona and my father in Maine, and furthermore, I was adopted at fourteen months. As you can see, your simple question does not have a simple answer. I did have three children, as it is in your family, but the second one passed away when he was eight years old. His name was Gilbert. I have a son Bruce, who is a lawyer in Alexandria, and a daughter, Fiona, who is an architect and lives in England, and I have two grandchildren (Hank and Violet) and one on the way next month. I am nolonger married, you’re correct, but my husband did not die. We divorced. He lives in Bruges, Belgium, where he is from.
Was I like you as a child? I suppose in some ways I probably was, though at my age it’s hard to remember much about being a child, and when I was young children weren’t really considered so much as they are these days. I remember, like you, I was very much a rule follower, rigid about how things ought to be done. I was also very curious, like you. My curiosity was directed at people. I was very small in stature, and I think smallness fostered in me a sense of wonder as well as trepidation, a trepidation exacerbated by the way my parents kept us rather insulated (afraid to lose us, some psychology about adoptees, perhaps, as well as the mentality that with their money they could build a fortress—oh, many, many things, Harry)—I was quiet and watchful. I remember always finding it odd the way people had of speaking around and around a thing rather than directly to the thing, and I was often punished for insolence and rudeness. I think you have had similar experiences. Of course I can appreciate now what my mother was trying to do, trying to make me into the polite sort of person (especially as a girl) the world expects, indeed the kind of person American civilization is built around, but it didn’t stick, and I’ve never really learned that skill. (I think you are more traditionally polite than I was or am, but perhaps you have been forced into this.) I guess I was considered somewhat odd. I wasn’t a cheerful, frivolous little girl interested in dolls and drawing. I was serious and rather grave. Watchful, wary. I was a skeptic. I didn’t have many friends. I read a great deal. I was reading all the time. I remember that. And I wrote a great many letters as a child. Writing letters was easier for me than speaking; it still is. Now this is getting long, and I apologize. You’ve got me thinking back on a time I haven’t revisited in quite a while.
Why would you think I’m lonely? I am not. I have you, andmy children and grandchildren, and several friends with whom I keep in correspondence, as well as my church and two wonderful friends in town, Trudy and Millie. I could never be lonely.
I wonder, Harry, are you asking if I am lonely because you are trying to find a way to tell me that you are? Don’t worry, dear. You can simply tell me.
With warm regards,
Ms. Van Antwerp
(cont. May 13, 2013, previous pages UNSENT)
