Memories Monday --The Phantom Sister

Dee Dee is my father’s daughter from his first marriage.  I’ve never met her.  Every year my father would go out to visit her for two weeks.   Sometimes I would wonder what my sister was like.  Would she be scientific like her (our!) father or did she take after her mother?  I didn’t know anything about her.

When I would ask about Dee Dee, my mother or father always changed the subject.  So eventually I got tired of asking.

I never understood why she couldn’t come to visit us.  I thought it would be really neat to have a sister, although my cousins told me it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be.  One time I said to my grandmother, “I’ll never have any nieces or nephews!”  She told me not to be silly; I’d just have to marry someone from a large family.  Later I heard her telling Aunt Pooh that “that poor little thing” (That’s me!) had been crying about never being an aunt.  My grandmother never had a problem with embellishing a story.

Then I would worry that I would never get married.  I mentioned this to my mother, and she said, “There are worse things than never getting married.”  I couldn’t imagine what.

It turned out that my father had left Dee Dee’s mother for my mother.  She had then taken Dee Dee and moved to the other side of the country.

Karen and Nikki thought the whole thing was very romantic.  Nikki thought it was rather Dickensian and said it was too bad Dee Dee’s mother hadn’t died when she was a kid, so Dee Dee could have come and lived with us, especially since from what we heard from Aunt Pooh her mother wasn’t very nice.  Or, as Karen put it, “a bitch.”  “She probably drove him into your mother’s arms.”

When I mentioned the whole marriage/inheritance situation, neither one of them said, “But they aren’t even engaged yet”.  That’s one of the things I love about them.

But they wanted to know what he had said to me and I had to admit I hadn’t talked to him.  “As far as I know, he doesn’t even know I know.”

“Oh, he knows you know,” Nikki said.  “Allison probably called him up and yelled at him.”

I was sorry I missed that.

I’ll have to have him for dinner on Father’s Day.  I can be subtle and ask how many people are coming. 

My friend Emily says my family is like something out of Edith Wharton.  Fortunately, she meant The Age of Innocence rather than Ethan Frome.

 

Memories Monday -- Where There's a Wedding, There Has to Be a Will

After assuring me that “they probably won’t get married,” Ed sat down at the kitchen table and worked out the dynamics of the situation.

“Allison is down one grandmother and we are up one.  The grandfathers stay the same.  Allison will inherit from my dad and mom and Kate and Tony's parents.  We’ll inherit from Dad and Mom and Kate and your dad and Missy.  Missy would inherit when he dies.   Her kids could get everything, unless he makes some provisions.”

“But that’s just if my father goes first.”

"If Missy dies first, your father would get everything.  But when he goes, it will be us and Mike and Rachael.   Allison is out of the loop with your dad’s money, of course.  But then, she has her in-laws."

I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation.  And I couldn’t believe what I said next.

“Maybe Allison will be so nasty that your mother and Kate will cut her out of their wills.”

“Allison would probably sue.”

I imagined headlines, “Court Battle Over Damned Gay Grandma’s Will,” with a retelling of the whole story of Cilla’s aborted conversion to Catholicism.  But that wouldn’t be for years and years.

Unfortunately, Cilla had been standing outside the door and she started to cry.  “I don’t want Grandma to die!”

“She’s not going to die, at least not for a long time.”

“But she will, one day.”

“Well, yes . . .”

“And we’ll all die one day.  You and Daddy and Grandpa Jack and Grandpa Doug and Grandma Kate and Betsey and Josh and me.”  She started crying again.  Then she got mad.  “Why do people have to die?  Betsey was right.  I don’t like God.”

I thought of Woody Allen in Hannah and Her Sisters and started to feel some twinges myself.  Wasn’t Cilla a little young for this?  But at least she had the certainty of Heaven.  The Unitarians said that no one knew anything about what happened when you died and you got the impression that the adults didn’t think there was anything.  My friends and I agreed that they were wrong, which was fine with them because everyone is entitled to his or her opinion.

“But, just think, we’ll all be together in Heaven.  You get to be with your whole family, even those you never met.”

Ed muttered something that sounded like, “But where do you go if you’ve been good?”  I kicked him under the table.

I reminded Cilla that you never have to go to bed in Heaven and that she could meet the Blessed Virgin Mother.

“Mommy can bake cookies with her.”  Ed was on a roll again.  “Or maybe with Joan of Arc.”  Fortunately that went over Cilla’s head.  “Or we could have a barbecue with her.”

Cilla wanted to know what kind of cookies they had in Heaven.  “Any kind you want.”  Then, fortunately, it was time for her to go to bed.

Ed remarked that we were proof that couples started turning into each other, except why was he talking about things that would probably never happen as if they would when I still didn’t like baseball?

I woke up in the middle of the night, remembering that we had forgotten something.

What about DeeDee?

 

 

Memories Monday -- Aftershocks

Karen and Nikki were delighted to hear about my father and Missy. 
Well, they aren’t the ones with a disgruntled sister-in-law and a father who’s in love.

“I knew it when I heard them talking at the wedding!”  Karen was triumphant.  “She probably set out to get him then.”

“No, she just wanted to make up with Janet.”

“That’s what she told him.  Of course, he was a sitting duck.  Damsel in distress, estranged from her best friend with a husband who fools around.”

“What did you say when he told you?”   Nikki asked.

“That’s the thing of it.  He hasn’t.”

“Why don’t you call him?”

“What should I say?  ‘Well, I hear you’re getting it on with my husband’s stepmother?’”  Everyone seems to lose their name in these situations and is spoken of by the way they are related to someone else.

Nikki doesn’t like loose ends.  “Do you want me to call him?”

This was getting to be like junior high except it involved my father.   “No, he might think you’re after him.”

“No offense, Charlie, but eew.”

I guess Karen was afraid my feelings would be hurt, because she quickly added, “Though he’s not bad for an old guy.”

“That’s right,” Nikki jumped in loyally.  “He’s even kind of cute for an old guy.  Distinguished.”

My father had never discussed love and marriage with me.  Neither had my mother, actually.  The main ideas I got from them was “Don’t get carried away with your social life and neglect your schoolwork” and  “Even if you get married, you can always go to school.”

I didn’t need to tell Janet and Kate because, as Janet told me later, Allison had called and yelled at both of them on the speaker phone.  Naturally, Kate had gone all therapist on her and Janet had gotten mad at Kate for not yelling back and defending her.  Then Kate got therapist with her.  Kate finally calmed Allison down by pointing out that now her inheritance from her father wouldn’t have to be shared with Missy and her kids.

“When Kate asked me how I felt about all this, I said the bastard had it coming and I hoped he was miserable.”

“What did she say?” I asked.

“She said, ‘Why don’t we have a nice cup of tea?’   I said, ‘I need a drink.'   And she said, ‘If you think you need a drink, you shouldn’t have one,’ but I just laughed.  You gotta love her.  So we went out for Chinese.”

Kate wasn’t the only one thinking of inheritances.

Ed is huffy because if my father marries Missy, we’ll lose money.  I hadn’t thought of that.
 

Memories Monday -- Your Father, My Father, and That Woman

When Missy and Janet became friends again, I thought we were going to be an even bigger happy family.  Ed was not particularly pleased.

He said that his mother and Missy had been Leftist-Hippy Lucy and Ethel in their day, getting together and carrying on and dragging him and Allison and Missy’s kids to protest marches and peace vigils.  “It’s a miracle we didn’t get lung cancer from all the secondhand pot smoke.  And the music!  Dear God, the music!  How many roads can a man walk down before they call him a man?  Solidarity forever!  I caught my mother singing that to Betsey when she was a baby.  I made her switch to “Jesus Loves Me”.  We’d come home from school and all there would be in the house was about three M & M’s.   We had to eat apples for snacks!”  Ed was on a roll.

I had to admit I didn’t have those problems, since my grandmother was always bringing cookies over to my house because I was a poor little thing with whose mother didn’t bake and my mother played special children’s classical music for me.

I thought Allison would be delighted, since she wanted everyone to be “healed”.  So I was surprised, to say the least, when I got a call from her. 

Without even saying hello, she said, “Well, I hope you’re happy.”

I didn’t know what she was referring to.  “I’m usually happy, yes.”

“Well, it’s good someone is because my father’s heart is broken.  Though I suppose your father and that woman are delirious.”

“What woman?”

“Your husband’s and my stepmother.  She’ll probably be your stepmother soon, until she gets tired of your father.”

It seemed as if Allison had forgotten everyone’s name.  But as far as I could make out, Missy had left Doug for my father.

“I suppose my mother and Pastor Parker were in on it, too.”

I guess she couldn’t think of a designation for Kate.  “Janet and Mother Parker had nothing to do with it.  People fall in love.  And as a matter of fact” (I knew this wasn’t nice, but it was true.) "what started this whole thing off was your suggesting we invite your father to the wedding.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have if I’d known what your father was capable of.”

“Do you want to talk to Ed?”  Ed had disappeared, but Cilla was sitting on the sofa, being very quiet so she wouldn’t miss anything.  She has a sixth sense when it comes to finding drama.

“You know he’s useless with this stuff.” 

Well, at least we could agree about that.                     

I haven’t heard from my father.  I don’t know if he’s waiting for me to call him.  I’m not up to it right now.

I just hope that Missy won’t mind staying with the kids on Christmas Eve.

Reflections in the Carpool -- A McDonald's Memory

Summer is supposed to be relaxing, but maybe that’s just a euphemism for “boring.”  That’s what I tell myself anyway. 

The kids go to various day camps  -- drama (Cilla),  music (Betsey), baseball (Josh), soccer and computer, (everyone) and in May we start shopping for the different camping gear.  (They send us lists.)

This year, Betsey wanted to go to overnight horseback riding camp.  I thought it would be a good idea, since there would be two weeks when we only had two kids to arrange carpools for.  But I felt funny.

Nikki said I was turning into one of those mothers who don’t want their kids to be independent. 

“Well, it’s just that she’s going away to camp now for two weeks and one day she’ll be going away to college for four years and then she’ll have her own apartment and maybe get a job somewhere else so she won’t even be home for vacations.”

“Maybe she’ll go to graduate school.”  Karen tried to be helpful.  “That’s at least two more years and maybe she’ll get a Ph.D.  And maybe she’ll get a degree in English or archeology or something like that and she’ll have to live at home.  At least between digs.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.  I must have looked upset, because Karen added, “But she’ll be able to write and then she’ll get something if she publishes.”

“Or she could write a novel that would make a lot of money.”

I don’t know which was worse, having an unemployed or underemployed daughter around the house or having her off someplace across the country.

“And Josh will go to college and Cilla will go to college and then they’ll get jobs miles away and then they’ll get married and Ed and I will be old.”

“You’ll never get old, Charlie.”

But I had started Karen off,  “I just know the boys will marry some awful girls who will call me ‘Mother” until they have kids and then they will not only refer to me as ‘Grandma’ or ‘Mom Mom’ or whatever they pick, but will call me that even when they’re talking to me and the kids aren’t around.”

“You should get to pick.  Don’t take any guff.”

“One thing, when the boys get engaged, I’m going to tell those girls to call me ‘Karen.’  I still don’t know what to call Tom’s mother.  So I don’t call her anything,”

“Helmut is going to want the grandchildren to call us ‘Oma’ and ‘Opa.’”

“That’s exotic.” I said.  “You can get them little dirndls and lederhosen.”

“You do realize, don’t you, that grandchildren will mean our children had sex?”

I had been trying not to.

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Reflections in the Carpool

Summer is supposed to be relaxing, but maybe that’s just a euphemism for “boring.”  That’s what I tell myself anyway. 

The kids go to various day camps  -- drama (Cilla),  music (Betsey), baseball (Josh), soccer and computer, (everyone) and In May we start shopping for the different camping gear.  (They send us lists.)

This year, Betsey wanted to go to overnight horseback riding camp.  I thought it would be a good idea, since there would be two weeks when we only had two kids to arrange carpools for.  But I felt funny.

Nikki said I was turning into one of those mothers who don’t want their kids to be independent. 

“Well, it’s just that she’s going away to camp now for two weeks and one day she’ll be going away to college for four years and then she’ll have her own apartment and maybe get a job somewhere else so she won’t even be home for vacations.”

“Maybe she’ll go to graduate school.”  Karen tried to be helpful.  “That’s at least two more years and maybe she’ll get a Ph.D.  And maybe she’ll get a degree in English or archeology or something like that and she’ll have to live at home.  At least between digs.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.  I must have looked upset, because Karen added, “But she’ll be able to write and then she’ll get something if she publishes.”

“Or she could write a novel that would make a lot of money.”

I don’t know which was worse, having an unemployed or underemployed daughter around the house or having her off someplace across the country.

“And Josh will go to college and Cilla will go to college and then they’ll get jobs miles away and then they’ll get married and Ed and I will be old.”

“You’ll never get old, Charlie.”

But I had started Karen off,  “I just know the boys will marry some awful girls who will call me ‘Mother” until they have kids and then they will not only refer to me as ‘Grandma’ or ‘Mom Mom’ or whatever they pick, but will call me that even when they’re talking to me and the kids aren’t around.”

“You should get to pick.  Don’t take any guff.”

“One thing, when the boys get engaged, I’m going to tell those girls to call me ‘Karen.’  I still don’t know what to call Tom’s mother.  So I don’t call her anything,”

“Helmut is going to want the grandchildren to call us ‘Oma’ and ‘Opa.’”

“That’s exotic.” I said.  “You can get them little dirndls and lederhosen.”

“You do realize, don’t you, that grandchildren will mean our children had sex?”

I had been trying not to.