And then,
Joe.
The nurse said, “Let’s smarten you up for your husband. There, your hair looks lovely now. A little lipstick, I think. Are you ready to see him?”
“I’ve been ready to see him,” I said, “since you brought me in here. Please go get him now.”
When he came in, did I greet him with a radiant smile? Well, partially. Of course, I was crying at the time.
“Joe,” I said, with the tiny bundle that was our daughter in my arms.“Joe.We have a baby girl. She’s a carrier, but she’s a girl. Agirl.”After that, I broke down completely.
Joe was on the bed with one arm around me and the other hand on the baby. The nurse was saying something, but I didn’t care. When I’d calmed down a little, Joe said, “But it’s all right that she’s a carrier. Darling, it’s all right.”
“I … I know.” I’d made such a mess of his shirt. I picked up a corner of the sheet and wiped my tears, and couldn’t care that I was no longer combed and lipsticked and pretty. “I’m just so relieved. Sorelieved.She isn’t going to die. We’re not going to have to …” Here I went again. “To watch her die.”
“No,” Joe said. “We aren’t. We’re going to watch her live.”
“Can it be …” I did my best to calm myself. “Can we be finished, though? I’m sorry. I know it— But I was so worried when I woke up, before they told me. As bad as with the mountain lion. I know you think I’m strong, but?—”
“I don’t think it,” Joe said. “Iknowit.”
“And you’re the strongest man I know,” I said. “But I was so worried, and I don’t think I can do this again. Can we be enough for you, Elise and I?”
The baby was in a little white cap, her face surely too beautiful to belong to a newborn. I can close my eyes even now and see that face, and Joe’s hand cupping her head. “Yes,” he said. “We can be enough for each other. You bet we can. You bet weare.”
“You’re the best husband in the world,” I said. “The best?—”
“I’m the luckiest one, anyway,” he said. “But it’s like I told you: I was born under a lucky star. And you? You were born under a whole galaxy. It’s you and me from here on out, Marguerite. From here until forever. You and me and Elise.”
40
EPILOGUE
Woodside, CA
Present Day
It was the first of March. And the eve of Alix’s wedding.
So much had changed since I’d gone back to Germany, and yet very little had changed. I was still in the house Joe and I had built in 1950, and the trees still grew outside the windows. The sun still shone and the rain still fell. Alix visited more frequently now, at least once or twice a month, and often brought Ben with her. Not Sebastian, for he’d been playing football and was often away from home. Alix wanted to spend time with me, yes, and also with her parents, but I thought that she was also sometimes rather lonely without him.
Having a partner—atruepartner—is an interesting thing, isn’t it? One is at the same time stronger and more vulnerable. When we have only ourselves to rely on and must survive by our wits, we can’t allow loneliness to enter the picture. But when we let down our guard and open our hearts, the story isvery different. It’s so difficult not to need once one has begun! So Alix came to visit, and Elise often came for an afternoon, too, and gradually, as the weeks and months went by, I told them the rest of the story, and did what I’d never done before: gave my daughter her father’s wartime letters to read, and my diary as well. With some mothers and daughters, I’ve come to believe, it takes many years for a true understanding to grow up, perhaps until one is old enough to realize that one’s way of being is not the only way. Which in my case had taken ninety-three years.
So, yes, I told the stories now without fear or second-guessing. Of Joe and me: our meager wedding and our cold and uncomfortable German flat, and how happy we’d been there. Of my journey across the Atlantic to join him, and my terrible driving and worse cooking. How Alix laughed at the Jell-O salads! There was Joe being splashed with sewage, too, and banging his fingers with hammers as he learned to work with his hands as well as his mind. The mountain lion and the birth of Elise, and all that had followed after it. And Joe’s family, of course. The Starks.
“How Mrs. Stark changed after your mother was born!” I’d told Alix one rainy winter afternoon as we cooked together. It wasRinderrouladentoday: the slices of beef pounded thin and rolled around pickles and bacon and mustard before being baked slowly in the oven, and then the gravy and the vegetables and the potato dumplings. Alix had wished to learn about this part of her heritage, and it warmed my heart to show her.
“Really?” Alix asked, scrubbing the countertop. “I don’t remember them at all. She died when I was little, didn’t she?”
“Yes, and we’d made our peace long since. Oh, the mountain lion was all very well and good, but to give her the much-wished-for granddaughter! Barbara, you know, had four sons, and Sophie one. And your mother was very pretty, with herblonde hair and brown eyes, and so neat and tidy always, with what used to be called ‘taking ways.’ She wanted to stay clean, and to do what she called ‘girl things,’ and she loved her grandmother best in all the world. Mrs. Stark spoiled her terribly—the dolls she bought her!—but that’s what grandparents are for, isn’t it?”
“I can hardly say anything critical about that,” Alix said, “since you and Grandpa did the same thing with me. You notice, though, that Mother didn’t keep the Stark name after she married. How did that go over? Elise Glucksburg-Thompkins? Elise vonSachsen?”
I waved a hand. Goodness, my hands were knotted and age-spotted now, and I couldn’t have removed my rings if I’d tried. Luckily, I didn’t want to try. It always took me by surprise, though, this aging of mine. “Elise Alexandrina Esther Glucksburg Stark. The ‘Esther’ was for Mrs. Stark’s mother. Jews name children after the dead rather than the living, but Mrs. Stark took the name as a compliment, which was indeed how we intended it. Esther was the Queen of Persia, and a Jew. So you see, royalty onbothsides.”
“You’re so shockingly devious,” Alix said, and I laughed and said, “But I was in real estate, you know. When one bakes a beautiful cake, one doesn’t just hack off a piece and dump it onto a paper plate.”
“Well, maybeyoudon’t,” Alix said. “I generally eat it out of the pan.”
