by Cathy Lamb
Maybe that’s why I went through what I did. Eventually, I would get myself together and become a vengeful, whip-ass former victim who would come up swinging for vulnerable kids. There was the “good” in it, right there.
I am done hiding. I am done cowering.
Keith Stein called me the other day about these lawsuits. He is a bulldog, as I have mentioned. He gets very mean, legally speaking. “They’re threatening back, Madeline.” He laughed. “All sorts of things, defamation of character, they’ll counter sue you, you’ll be liable for court costs, etcetera. What do I tell them?”
“Tell them . . .” I thought about my life and what men had done to me, how they’d hurt me, how these other men-monsters were hurting other children, and I said what I thought, and I meant it all the way through to my bones. “Tell them I said, Don’t fuck with me.”
I received a package from Torey. Inside was a letter.
“I read your speech, Madeline. I have let my emotions out for you, for the kid you were, for three days. I sent you an animal hug.”
I opened the box.
Inside was a long, furry (fake) tail.
“Aurora King is here, Madeline,” Georgie said via the phone.
“Excellent.” I put aside an offer from a speaker’s bureau to go on a national tour. “I’ve been thinking that I need a handful of glitter in my hair.”
“She says that she can feel your spirit and it is . . . what color, Aurora? Gold. She says your spirit is gold and she is not sensing any black swirling around you. She says she was so worried about you recently that she meditated for you, at night outside . . . what? She said she lit candles, too, for you and made a special tea with mowi wowi. You know what mowi wowi is, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “Did she bring any of the tea?”
“No, she didn’t. She says she’s seeing shelves, a red hat, a boy/man, I don’t know what she means by that, and an old wedding ring with blood.”
“Good. What is she wearing?”
“Gold. Ruffles, fairy wings.”
“Show her in. Tell her not to throw glitter at me.”
“Don’t throw glitter at Madeline,” I heard Georgie say as she rang off.
I opened my door to Aurora and closed my eyes.
She threw gold glitter at me.
But this time, I was prepared. I threw silver, glittery stars back at her. Two huge handfuls.
She was surprised, but then she announced, staring at me in my blue pencil skirt with a ruffle and a pink, silky, Japanese-styled blouse, with awe in her voice, “I believe you’ve found your soul.”
“I have eight clients now, Madeline,” Ramon told me. “Eight clients lined up that I’m building stuff for like decks and arbors and trellises. Most of them in your neighborhood. I have other people who have called, I called them back, and I’m going to meet with them later. Plus, I had so many people who needed their lawn mowed that now I’ve hired a guy to do it. He was in jail with me. He’s a hard worker. Made a mistake when he was twenty-one and sold drugs, but now he’s going to minister school.”
“Good job, Ramon. And, I love my yard. I hate my house, but I love the yard. My realtor said that I’m going to be able to price it higher because of what you’ve done.”
“Thanks, Madeline.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Want to hear the best news?”
“Sure do, Ramon.”
“I’m getting my brother back.”
I had to grab tissues for the tears leaking from my eyes.
“Thanks, Madeline. You know all those kids you give life coaching to down at Youth Avenues? Everybody thinks you’re awesome. I think you’re awesome, too.”
“Back at ya, Ramon. Back at ya.” I sniffled, accidentally snorted. He hugged me.
Folks, reach out a hand to help others in need. You’ll never regret it.
A’isha Heinbrenner, the woman with the five kids and a husband she divorced after thirty years of marriage, came to see me. She was wearing stylish jeans, a thick red sweater jacket that simply screamed “Scotland,” and bold jewelry made of stone. She had dyed her hair a zippy auburn brown color and grown it out a couple of inches. She wore bright red lipstick. She had returned to Oregon to sell / donate / give away almost everything she had, including her home and cars. “I love Scotland, Madeline.” She was a whole different person, at least ten years younger, twenty-five pounds off her body, energy radiating in waves. Maybe it was the Scottish whiskey. “And Scotland loves me. Come and visit, will you?”
I nodded, hugged her.
Maybe I’d go to Faerie Glen and make a wish.
The Giordano sisters stopped in, swinging their cat tails, twiddling their whiskers. They showed me the front page of the living section of the paper.
“Meow! Here we are, Madeline,” Adriana said, pulling on an ear. “Don’t we look catty?”
“It’s us and our good deeds! The reporter wanted to know our identities, but we wouldn’t tell her!” Bella said, swinging her tail. “Shhh . . .”
“We’re the secret cats, and we prowl around town and make people’s lives better,” Carlotta said, scratching her claws.
I glanced at Princess Anastasia. She made that spitting sound. Bee La La rolled her eyes, I swear it. Candy Stripe yawned.
“Daddy left us so much money!” Adriana said.
“Every time we do a good deed for someone, we send him a photo!” Bella said.
“And, across the bottom we write, Meow Meow!” Carlotta said.
“Fun and fun!”
“Wicked naughty!”
“Fantabulous!”
“We brought your suit, Cat Madeline! We’re leaving in five minutes, so hurry up! A good man who has leukemia is going with his wife and five kids to Disneyland!”
“You’ve been sent a terrarium.” Georgie strutted in, holding a box. Knee-high black boots, black short skirt, tights in purple stripes, one purple streak in her white-blond hair. Her muscle was flexed where her grandma was smoking a cigar. “Look at this!”
Stanley barked and we went through the bark, shake, and hug routine.
From the box she pulled out a humongous glass sphere. Inside the sphere were plants, moss, and white glittery sand. The glass sphere had been painted with two white birds on a delicate tree branch. On top was a hook so you could hang the terrarium from the ceiling.
“It’s amaaazzzzing,” Georgie said.
“Who’s it from?” I held the sphere in my hand. Inside the sphere were pink and blue plastic butterflies; a tiny, yellow spotted frog; two purple snakes; miniature blue jays; and a six-inchtall blue cottage with a red front door.
“It’s from, can I have a drumroll?” Georgie said, then imitated that drumroll. “Steeeeeeeve Shepherddddddd!”
I sucked in my breath and almost dropped the sphere with the painted birds.
“I’ll read the card,” Georgie said. “Greetings, Madeline, from the snake finder. I’ll restrain myself from pestering you anymore, fair lady. But, remember, I’m always available for frog catching, puddle jumping, writing stories back to back, or canoeing down a river. Cheers and good luck. Steve Shepherd.”
I sank into my leather chair.
“I think he likes you, Madeline, yep, I think he does. What do you think, Stanley?” Stanley barked, waved his paw.
I could not wave back because I was holding a sphere.
I wouldn’t call him, I couldn’t.
But he was speaking tonight....
It was sold out, but one of my clients was the head of the box office at the concert hall....
I sat in the balconies, way high up in the back, Annie beside me.
I was wearing a black pencil skirt; a blue jean jacket; a blue, red, and yellow scarf with fringe; huge hoop earrings; and some killer high heels. I had bundled up all my suits and given them to Goodwill, so there was no chance of wearing a straitjacket / chastity belt again. My curls were down and curling all over.
“You look hot,” Annie said. �
�Love the new you.”
“Me too,” I said. “If I have a suit on again in my entire life, I’ll know it’s because someone is stuffing me into a coffin.”
“Don’t worry. For your coffin outfit, I’m going to dress you in a bikini and have a tattoo artist draw Mr. Legs on your stomach. It’ll be your final gift to animal-kind.”
“Thank you, Annie. I know I can count on you to help me make a dignified exit. I do have a fondness for Mr. Legs, too.”
The lights went down, someone from Literary Arts made an introduction, and boom.
There he was.
Steve Shepherd, way down there, onstage.
I was back on the Cape, running through sand, sailing on the ocean, laughing in a plume of hair spray, passing out pink cookies with Red Hots. I was skipping through the woods with Steve, climbing trees, exploring ponds . . .
I was back there, back in time, with Steve.
And though I was way, way up at the top, at one point, he saw me. He stopped talking, midsentence, for loooonnng seconds, until people turned and stared. He grinned, a charming, sweet smile, and he was young again and so was I, and it was the two of us, with Annie tagging along, and we were playing in the lake, the sun hanging softly in the sky, benevolent and kind, the wind cooling our hot foreheads, that sweet innocence boomeranging between us.
31
There was a very, very happy, enormously happy thing that came from my revelations of child abuse and the real names of my momma and my grandparents.
I received a call in my office, on a rainy, blustery, but strangely soothing afternoon, as if the weather were feeling maternal. It was from an older man. Georgie did not understand his French, so she transferred him to me. “I got the bonjour part, but nothing else, Madeline. I think you better yak with this one.”
“Bonjour.”
“Bonjour, bonjour,” he said, then burst into tears.
It was hard to understand his French through his tears. I heard other people in the background, speaking a language I did not understand.
“S’il vous plait. Is it true that your mother’s name is Anna Bacherach? And, s’il vous plait, is your grandfather’s name Abe Bacherach, his first wife’s name Madeline Rossovsky Bacherach. Please, please, is this the truth?”
It was the truth.
It was a miracle.
It was a gift.
It was hard to understand my French through my tears.
We enlisted the aid of a private detective, a former Israel special forces guy in Tel Aviv who Annie knew from her “mystery years.” After doing some checking, to make absolutely sure we had things right, because we could not afford a mistake, Annie and I told Granddad very carefully, very slowly, with Dr. Rubenstein by his side, just in case, in the gazebo, on a day when the happy sun slanted at angles and lit everything up with gold sparkles.
I wanted to tell him in a hotel five minutes from a hospital, or even the lobby of a hospital, but we thought it would stress him out even more, so we told him the truth, the lavender starting to bloom in rows, purple, white, and bluish flowers bursting into life.
“I don’t understand,” he said, his voice down to a hoarse whisper, his body rigid, as if he couldn’t let go or piece by piece he’d fall apart.
We waited. It was so much. So much to process. Maybe too much.
“I don’t understand. Are you telling me . . .” His hands shook.
I grabbed a hand, so did Annie. Dr. Rubenstein leaned forward, watching all physical signs to make sure Granddad was not going to have another heart attack. He’d even brought a bag of medical supplies.
“What you’re saying is . . .” Granddad’s eyes filled with huge tears. It is so hard to see an older person cry. There’s something that much more heartbreaking about it, and this news. This news!
“I don’t believe . . . you’re sure . . .” He started to sob.
Annie told him about the private detective, the research, while Dr. Rubenstein burst into tears. He was not a quiet crier.
“You believe that it’s true then. . . .”
“We know it to be true,” Annie said. “Damn true.”
“You are telling me that my son—” A tremor ran through his whole body, rocking him.
I kissed both his cheeks, held his face in my hands.
“My son Ismael, Ismael!”
“Yes, Granddad, your son Ismael—”
“You are telling me . . .” He called out again, guttural, loud.
I was so broken for him . . . and yet, so happy, so immensely, roaringly happy.
He shook his head, back and forth, back and forth. “You are telling me that Ismael, my son, he is alive?”
We were telling him that. “He’s alive, Granddad. Ismael’s alive. He lives in Tel Aviv.”
He covered his face, and he shouted, that shout echoing through the gazebo, around the rows of lavender, down the land quilt of hills and valleys, and over the blue mountains to the sea.
His whole soul poured out, raw and wounded, then he stood and spread his arms out, up to the sky, his head throw back. “Thank you, God,” he thundered, every word splintering with grief, with joy, with the miraculous miracle that was now his life. “Ismael! Ismael! My son, my beautiful son! I am coming! I am coming!”
My granddad is suffering from prostate cancer. He is also suffering from arthritis and heart disease and had a recent heart attack. He is extremely old, has worked full time for decades establishing his stores, and has lived a life of such tremendous, overwhelming grief, loss, and guilt, it is a wonder he is not long dead.
Within a day and a half, we were in Tel Aviv.
“I will go to my son,” he told Annie and me, his voice cracking, a fire blazing in those old, kind eyes, eyes that had hardly stopped spilling tears since this most incredible news. “And if I die one minute after seeing him, one minute after I hold him in my arms, I will die grateful. I will die happy. I need . . .” He stopped, his voice choked. “I need only one minute,” he whispered. “One minute with my son. Do you understand? One minute. That’s it.”
I hugged him close. The trip might very well kill him. In fact, it probably would. It was long, it was stressful. Anything could happen. It would be worth it. “You’ll get that minute, Granddad, I promise you.”
The question of how to travel with Grandma was one we spent a little time on. We never thought to leave her at home, even though the flights would be grueling and how she would react unpredictable. She needed to be there, but how best to do it? Where should we fly to first? Should we spend the night in Boston before flying over? Two nights? What time of day should we fly?
Nola and Dr. Rubenstein had already agreed to go with us. “It will be my greatest pleasure,” Dr. Rubenstein said. “I will do it for the love of your family. For my parents and your grandparents’ enduring love and friendship.”
Nola said, “I will come. Your family has brought me so much happiness, I will be with you in your happiness, also.”
Grandma heard us talking that night when we thought she was in bed.
“Ismael!” she said, rushing into the room in a lacy yellow negligee with a yellow lace skirt and high bedroom slippers with a fluffy white plume at the toe. She had not bothered to put a robe on. “You said Ismael! You’ve found him! He’s with us now! Is there still blood?”
“No, Grandma, there’s no blood,” Annie said, soothing, hugging her. “There’s none.”
She clapped her hands, then leaped into my granddad’s arms, her face aglow. “We will go to him tonight! Tonight! Where is he?”
We explained to her that he was far, far away. She clapped her hands again. “I will pack my bags and we will leave on the backs of the swans and they will fly us away to my nephew, Ismael!” She paused. “Madeline is there, too, isn’t she? In the Land of the Swans?
“No, Grandma,” Annie said. “She’s in heaven.”
“Not yet, not yet!” Her face crumpled, fists tight. “What about Anna in her blue coat with the violin?”
“Luke?”
“In heaven, with his arms around Anna.” Yes, he would be hugging our momma.
Grandma clapped her hands to her cheeks, arching her back in grief. “I miss them, I miss them!” she wailed. “Oh, I want them back!” We waited for her to compose herself, to dig through the grief that punctured the dementia, and I slung an arm around those tiny shoulders.
“But we can see Ismael,” I said.
Abruptly she stared at us, the fuzz lifting.
“Madeline’s in heaven with her daughter, Anna,” she said. “They are with the swans. They are in the Land of the Swans now, in the garden, by the pond, over the bridge. Okay!” She hugged my granddad, then kissed him on the lips. “Now don’t you get all horny with me, young man! We don’t have time for any of your sexy shenanigans! You’ll have to wait until tonight, a proper time to make love to me! But I’m busy now. I have to pack a bag for Ismael! I knew we would find him! I’ve always felt him right here.” She pointed to her heart, then rushed off on her heels, her lacy skirt flopping. “Always!”
Dementia works in interesting ways. Our grandma was done packing in minutes. When she skipped out of her bedroom in her negligee to give Nola a hug and “help” Nola pack, Annie and I opened her suitcases.
She had packed almost perfectly. Sweaters and blouses. Pants. Shoes. Scarves. A tiny bikini, who knew where she got it, and her two most wild lingerie pieces, one in animal print, the other black lace, and a pair of pink fluffy handcuffs. I did not want a visual image of those handcuffs with Granddad. She also packed another suitcase with fancy dresses, sparkly heels, her jewelry case, and long white gloves. Grandma was ready!
Tucked inside the pocket of the suitcase, there were several swans, one carved from wood, another ceramic, a third made from glass, a menorah I’d never seen, and old, old pictures. Annie and I went through them, later asking Granddad who they were. He could not control his emotions. He did not try.