You know, I don't know if they know that I know.

Although I wasn’t around when Doug left Janet for Missy, Ed told me about it.  Actually, I wormed it out of him.

Janet had really been more upset about losing Missy and basically told Doug, “Ok, see you.”  Doug had been fooling around for years.

Allison had cried and yelled and slammed doors.  She blamed Janet and said that maybe if she’d been a better cook and housekeeper, he wouldn’t have left.  Not that she ever tried to help except by pointing out what needed to be done.

Ed had been upset, of course, but he had thrown himself into school and sports.  That might have been partly because Doug had told the kids, “Don’t think you’re going to be cut any breaks because you come from a broken home.  You’re not going to be allowed to slack off.”

And so they didn’t.

Janet had moved away from the activism.  As she put it, ‘What with ‘Discovering My True Sexual Identity’, as they say, and all, I couldn’t give poverty and injustice my full attention.”

Ed says that discovering her true sexual identity mostly involved talking on the phone and running around with her new friends.

Janet enrolled in a program for displaced homemakers at the Community College and became a legal secretary.  Naturally she had to wear business clothes to work.  (The secretarial course had included makeup and wardrobe tips, which she said made her teeth hurt, but what can you do?)  Missy wears gauzy shirts and embroidered tunics and jewelry made by her artist friends or from some boutique that specializes in “crafts.”  To be fair, she is the office manager for a group of therapists.

I always have my father over for dinner on Father’s Day.  Sometime Ed’s father and Missy would come, unless they’d gone out to visit Allison.  The men would usually watch sports on TV.  My mother was fascinated by Missy.  “Karma, chakras, meditation. It’s just lucky she has a husband.”

Janet had always told the children to be polite to Missy, so it’s a habit.   And she is very good to the kids, who call her “Nana.”  They have the latest in gender-neutral toys and political t-shirts that are not made in sweatshops.

Nikki said I should call Doug and invite him and Missy and then he would tell me.  I thought that was a bit junior high and that it was more “Mature” and “Appropriate” not to say anything, which probably isn’t healthy, but there are some parts of your upbringing you can’t escape.

Finally, Janet talked to Missy, since they are friends again.  Missy talked to my father and then to Janet and Janet called me.  So I called Missy and invited them.  When I told Ed, he said, “Is this the court of the Medicis or Henry the Eighth?  All this intrigue over a dinner.”

And then, for some reason, I started to cry.

 

Memories Monday -- Law? Order?

Betsey and Josh took it upon themselves to prepare me for my interrogation – if there is one.  I haven’t heard anything yet.  Betsey was the brilliant defense attorney and Josh the loyal associate, or maybe her private detective.  Cilla hung around so as not to miss anything.

“Now remember,” Betsey cautioned, “the cops will try to get you to confess.  Don’t believe anything they say.  Don’t you say anything without a lawyer.”

“I don’t have anything to confess. I didn’t do it.”

“They don’t care.”

“What if they won’t let her go to the bathroom unless she confesses?” Cilla chimed in.  That did make me a little nervous.  I guess it’s all the worrying I do about children’s and animals’ bladders.  (Ed can look out for himself.)

“Ask to see a lawyer right away,” Josh advised.  “He’ll make them let you go.” 

“Or she,” Betsey corrected.

Ed was passing by on his way to somewhere.  “Just make sure you get a public defender.  Otherwise, we won’t be able to afford Disney World next year.”

“I don’t want to go the Disney World if Mommy’s in jail,” Cilla wailed.

“That’s all right; we can all send her postcards.”

“Stop it, Ed.  Just go do whatever it is you’re doing.  Or take the dog out.”

“Anyway,” Betsey continued, “Don’t get taken in by the good cop/bad cop routine.  You know what that is, don’t you?”

“I think so.”  There was no sense telling the kids that Ed and I had used it for years.  (Not having someone to be the other cop must be one of the hardest things about being a single parent.)

Fortunately, they didn’t want to role play for practice.

“They’ll ask you if you want a cup of coffee to give you a false sense of security.”

“I just drink tea,” I interrupted.  I couldn’t help myself.

“If you ask for tea that might make them mad.  You’d better just say, ’No thank you.’”

I almost suggested that I could wait for the lawyer and then ask for tea, but since I don’t have the legal knowledge the children have picked up from television, I decided to keep quiet.  Besides, tea might make me have to go to the bathroom.  Diet soda would be best, since it makes you retain water.  There’s sodium in it, I think.

By then, it was time to start dinner.  I thanked Betsey and Josh for their help and Priscilla for her support.

Of course, I don’t have anything to worry about, since I’m innocent.  But isn’t that what they all say in the mystery movies?

 

Memories Monday -- The Conversation Dangles, but at Least There Are No Superficial Sighs

We always have a special family dinner for Valentine’s Day:  spaghetti, cherry 7 Up, red velvet cake, and cherry Jello in a heart-shaped mold.  (One year I made a heart-shaped meatloaf, but it clashed with the rest of the food.)

So Ed and I go out for our Romantic Dinner the Saturday after Valentine’s Day.  I root in my closet for a dress and heels, run out to buy panty hose, and find someone to stay with the kids.  Ed makes the reservation after I decide where we’re going to eat.  (Not because I’m bossy, but because he doesn’t care as long as it’s not Thai, which he says tastes like Lemon Pledge.)

Betsey and Cilla helped me accessorize while Josh hung around and argued about how late they could stay up.   Ed’s mother Janet arrived with three pizzas (plain, pepperoni, and pineapple) and enough cookies to put the children in a sugar stupor.

And we were off.

“So,” I said in the car, “what are you going to get?”

Ed didn’t want to make a commitment until he’d seen the menu.

The problem with Saturday night dates is that you’ve been together all day and have used up most of the available topics of conversation.

Of course, on the drive, there is always the traffic.

At the restaurant you can talk about the parking, the crowd, and what you are going to eat, since now you have to make a commitment.

And you can always discuss the occasionally heart-warming or more often annoying antics of the children and pets.

This year we were lucky because we could talk about the murder. I analyzed Margaret’s character and offered several scenarios of who could have done it.

Ed said he couldn’t believe that they’d gotten his steak just right and asked me if I was going to eat my share of the garlic bread or what.

Finally you can debate whether to have dessert, get one and share it, or just have coffee (or tea in my case.)  Since this was our Special Romantic Dinner, I had strawberry cheesecake.  Ed doesn’t like strawberries.  He had apple pie a la mode. He got wild and crazy and had cinnamon ice cream instead of vanilla.

There weren’t any movies we wanted to see.  I wanted to go parking, but Ed said it was too cold.

So we went home.  The kids were watching an old monster movie and dropping cookie crumbs all over the couch.  Ed grabbed a slice of pizza (only plain was left) and sat down with them.

Janet and I tidied up in the kitchen and talked about the murder for an hour and a half.

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 -- Reflective Discussion with the Girls, Mrs. Fields, and Ben and Jerry

As everybody probably said at the obsequies, it was a beautiful day for the funeral.  I didn’t go, but I said a prayer for Margaret.  Of course, by now she is well established in heaven; she’s probably had tea with Barbara Pym and Agatha Christie.  I guess she said hi to Jesus, too.

Karen, Nikki and I got together at Nikki’s house for girls’ night in (after we’d gotten dinner for the troops at home; you know how it is).  They wanted to hear all the details.  After the second glass of wine, we started talking about heaven.  We decided that:

1.        You got to know anything you wanted. We all decided we wanted to know the truth about the Kennedy assassination.  I said I wanted to know if Elizabeth the First was really a virgin and they said I was naïve.

2.       You can eat anything you want and not get fat.  If you are fat when you die, you will become your perfect weight.

3.       You can meet famous people and they will be gracious. You may even become friends with them.  Nikki, who is not religious, said that some people, like Elvis, wouldn’t have time.  I explained that should we be there ten thousand years there would be no less days to schmooze than when we’d first begun.  I’m the only church goer (or, as Nikki says, church lady) among us.  Karen is spiritual, but not religious.

4.       You can drink and abuse drugs, but it won’t hurt you.

5.       We didn’t get to discussing sex in heaven until the third glass.  And since I’m a church lady, I’m too embarrassed to tell you what was said.

Dear Reader:  What are your ideas about heaven? And what do you think of ours?
To comment, click on "No Comments."  (It confused me too.)

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 -- No Cocktails, but the Elephant's Here

Funerals always make me think of the King and the Duke in Huckleberry Finn and the Duke’s talk about “funeral orgies.”  (He meant “obsequies.”)  I’ve found that it’s better to think of that before the obsequies than in the middle of them.

I didn’t know whether to go to the viewing or the funeral.  To go to both seems ghoulish.  And it might make people wonder why I was so interested.  I decided to just do the viewing.  That way it wouldn’t look like I was trying to get out of work.  And since it’s at night, it will save vacation time.

The viewing was actually “calling hours,” since the casket was closed.  I think Margaret would have wanted a closed casket no matter what; she would go into a toilet stall if she had to lift her skirt to pull her blouse down.

People were standing in clusters, presumably with their own groups – church friends, relatives with their particular family branches, old grade school and high school friends.  People would start to smile and then remember where they were.  It looked like a cocktail party gone bad, without the cocktails, of course. 

I joined some of my friends from the library.  We didn’t have much to say that was suitable for a viewing; it would be tacky to discuss suspects and motives.

So we commented on the flowers.  They were very nice, lovely, and beautiful.  “Did you go up yet?” someone asked me.  I hadn’t, so I did.  When I introduced myself to Margaret’s sister, she knew me.  “Peggy talked about you a lot, both of you being into books and all.”  Peggy!  The fact that Margaret had a nickname seemed even more surprising than that she’d been murdered. 

Margaret’s brother-in-law and nephews stood bravely receiving condolences and her pre-teen niece hung by her mother, clutching a cloth handkerchief printed with hearts.  I wondered if they’d had to run out and get suitable clothes for the children, the way we did when my mother died.  (The girls didn’t have dresses that fit and Josh didn’t own a tie.  He’s probably lost that one by now.) 

My group was going out for coffee, but I had promised the kids to tell them all about the viewing.  Before I left, I looked around to see if anyone looked suspicious.  No luck.  I wonder if anyone was looking at me and if I passed. 

The three of them were waiting for me.  I could barely get my coat off.  I made us all cocoa and it was really quite cozy, almost like talking over a party or wedding.  I told them about the closed casket (a disappointment) and the lack of suspects (another bummer).  Josh wanted to know if there’d been any police there.  I hadn’t thought to look.   

Ed wandered in and grabbed some marshmallows.  “Don’t worry, guys.  Mommy will have much more to tell after they question her.  That is, if they let her come home.”

I gave him a Look and Betsey and Josh said, “Oh, Daddy.”  Cilla threw her arms around my neck.  It took fifteen minutes to convince her that Ed was kidding.