Our Seas of Fear and Love

by Richard Shain Cohen

  “Look, damn it. This is no time for an argument. We have to find our daughter. Think of someone else for a change?” For an instant he envisioned an image of Kaitlin reaching tearfully to him. He shook his head.

  “Pamela,” he called. Deirdre started to call also. He wanted to tell her to keep quiet. He felt suddenly weary, the fighting, her advancing frigidness with him, his wish she would just disappear like Melinda. But did he truly want this?

  “Pam,” he called again. “What, dad?”

  Deirdre reached out and started to shake her. Pamela, scared, pulled away.

  “Leave her alone, Deirdre. Pam, have you seen your sister?”

  “No. Why?”

  “She's not here.”

  Pamela already knew. She hated to lie to her father, wasn't even convinced her mother cared. In fact, Deirdre was in tears, feeling, knowing, blaming herself. She did care for the girls, but some flaw, Is that the word I should use?, kept her from being the mother they needed. Gregory interrupted Deirdre's guilt conversation with herself, the self only she could understand, that she wanted to expunge but knew she wouldn’t for the desires that satisfied her. This life was hers to fulfill as she molded it.

  Gregory, interrupting her self-satisfaction, promised to locate Melinda. He thought of her close friends, called until it occurred to him that perhaps she had gone with her friend from school.

  He took Pamela aside. “Now tell me truthfully, Pam. You know where she is and who she’s with. I know it.”

  Pamela did not want her father to suffer, felt the fear in him, his desire to protect her and her sister.

  “Yes. Dad. She’s with Anita. They went in Anita’s car. She’s mad, daddy. She thinks mom took advantage of her and invited people who could help mom. She’ll listen to you. I know it.” Pamela was now crying as she spoke. “I’m sorry, daddy. I promised her.”

  “It’s O.K. Stop crying, dear. I know how Melinda feels. But your mother is your mother, and she deserves your respect,” hesitantly speaking the last words.

  He did call Anita’s home and spoke to Melinda. He said he’d come to her. He'd take clean clothes, and they’d talk.

  Deirdre immediately wanted to know where she was.

  “She’s with a friend.”

  “What friend?” she harshly demanded. “She doesn’t care a damn about what she’s doing to me. And you too,” she managed to add.

  “I know she does.”

  “Oh, yes. You know.”

  Rather than answer and argue, he started to leave for Melinda’s room.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To her room to get her more clothes. I’m going to go get her and bring her home for the last few days.”

  “You’re taking me!”

  “NO.” He could not help himself. “She feels hurt enough. I’ll go alone.”

  “She’s my daughter. And Pamela has Andrea to look after her.”

  He turned to her, his voice cold and difficult to control. “I said I’m going, and that’s that.”

  Deirdre wanted to go after him and pull him back into the room. “What for?” she asked herself. Sometimes I think the whole bunch of them should just go to hell. He’s a weakling. Face it. Deirdre. You married a weakling. They have him wound around their fingers. Oh, you’re funny. Just like I did. I just don’t care anymore. Like when he wants to watch TV and something about the World War or that flag of his he wants to hang. Not on your life, Greg. Why don’t you let him watch about the war? Because of your own hurt and Étienne?

  She decided there was no sense in fighting more about Melinda. He could drive by himself and get her. Sure. Then they can talk about me. The mean mother, the wicked witch. Snow White and the one dwarf. So why don’t you divorce him if you feel this way? Prestige, dear. Prestige. I never had that in Warrington. The chicken farm. My poor dad and what my mother had to put up with. I wasn’t about to live like that. Well, I wouldn’t have had to. Fuck. Forget it. I have what I want, and I’ll get Étienne too in my way.

  ~

  Gregory drove to Anita’s home in New Hampshire and got Melinda. When Melinda came to the door, she leaped at her father, hugged him tightly. Her eyes tearful, “Daddy. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare or hurt you. But mom makes me so mad.”

  He took her arms, moved her away. “Let me look at you. But dry your eyes first. The tears don’t belong with those eyes.” Her eyes, hazel, reminded him of Brigit at times when they were bright. “There.” He took out his handkerchief and gently wiped at her tears. “Let’s thank Anita and her parents and get on our way.”

  At first there was silence. He had put on the radio to music she would like. “Why did you do it, Melinda?”

  “I couldn’t help it. I was so mad. Did she tell you what I did with my dress before I got ready.”

  “Nope. It looked great and was just right for you.”

  “I threw it in a corner I was so mad.”

  Gently he led her. “Why? What for?”

  “Because, as I said before, everything’s for her. She’s probably also mad because I want to go to med school too, like grandpa, you, Aunt Mary.”

  He laughed. “You mean you don’t want to be a singer like my mother?”

  “Oh, stop,” she smiled and pushed him in the arm.

  “Careful. I’ll go off the road.” At that he stopped. They were by a lake, fields and trees surrounding it. Ducks floated near the shore. He thought he heard a loon. “Did you hear that, Melinda?”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Isn’t it as though all heaven were laid out before us? Or perhaps we drove through a black hole and came upon a mysterious world where if we look, we can find out all the answers to our problems.” He looked at her, smiled.

  “What do you do when you have problems? You must at work and with all those people you have to work with and boss.”

  “I don’t boss, dear, and yes, I do have problems. But I don’t run away.”

  She squeezed her eyes as she wrinkled her brow, thinking he was criticizing her.

  “Take that look off your face. I wasn’t criticizing you,” starting the car again. “Just talk. I’ll listen. Promise.”

  “Dad. She wanted that party for herself. You know it as well as Pamela and I do. Sure, she wanted to show me off, because I’m some sleeping beauty just awakened for all the people to ogle at. I’m not a thing in a glass cabinet, or one of her Chinese vases. I’m me.

  “And,” she hesitated. “And, we know how she treats you. And we heard at the door that day. Why do you put up with it? You know I know all about sex. She talked to me, before I had my first period. I know what married people do. I guess they do because they love each other. Well, it didn’t sound that way to us.”

  His face turned red, he swallowed. “People didn’t come to ogle, Melinda. Sure, you’re a good-looking girl. That’s something to like. But those people there know us. Your friends from around Cape Astraea were there.”

  “Oh, dad, stop making excuses for her. I know. She’s my mother and I, oh, I’ll say it my way, I should love her, but . . . .” and she stopped.

  “But what?”

  “Well, sometime I just hate her, the way she bosses. Everyone knows it. Who cares what school she went to, what she did in the war? You were in that too, and no one hears you bragging or putting on the dog. Sure, I’m proud of both of you for that. And sure. I want to go to her college. But pushing. Pushing. I can’t stand it, dad. I don’t even want to be home anymore – well, except for you. I mean that. We love you.”

  “You make me sound like a weak man.”

  “I didn’t mean that. It’s just that you’re so nice. You treat us like we’re people. I don’t mean your equals. We know we’re family, but there’s a wrenching. I feel it. Pam feels it.”

  He waited. She was crying again.

  “Melinda, dear, don’t cry.” He stopped the car. “Look at me.” She did. “You’re the oldest, older,” he slipped, again thinking of Kaitlin, “daughter. We want y
ou to be everything you want, to enjoy yourself, especially now and when you go to college. You know, if you go to med school, it won’t be easy. But you can have fun there too. And I want you to have fun, to be strong. You are.” He laughed. “You sure did show you own your own mind, didn’t you?”

  She sniffled, smiled. “I did. I’m sorry I scared you.” She wiped at her eyes, took a tissue from her handbag. “I love you, daddy.” She put her arms about him. “I do love you,” sniffled some more, forced a smile. “I won’t ever do this again to you, well, to either of you. I know I upset her too.” Another interval. “But I wanted to. Oh shoot, I’ve said all I want to. You understand, don’t you?”

  “I understand,” and he kissed her cheek.

  Deirdre also understood and summoned her love for her fortune at having given birth to two future enchanting daughters. Tortuous Peace. Korean style.

  ~

  Nixon kept the troops in Cambodia for two months, while at home women’s hemlines became shorter, almost to the thighs. That was the pleasant war of spring and summer. That became the men’s ogle. But the real problem Nixon tried to avoid. Instead of finding an enemy, he bombed Cambodia, left the country in ruins, weakened that government. Nixon was close to declaring the war unwinnable and called for more Paris peace talks.

  On campuses about the country there were protests. Then, in May, were the criminal, repugnant Kent State killings of four students, two coeds and two males, the embedded photograph of disbelieving grief in the country’s mind and conscience. Thousands gathered at Yale and Harvard and other campuses, cities, and towns.

  President Nixon spoke to the nation of the ‘bums’ who were destroying the country while his wretched Vice-President Agnew descried the ‘elites’ who were undermining American confidence and aiding the enemy.

  It would take a while longer, but those undermining the country were the Vice-President who had to depart his office for fraud before the President announced his resignation for criminal acts. The attorney general, Mitchell, whose wife spoke out about the evil in the administration - unlike Deirdre who agreed with Nixon and Agnew - and was sent to an institution for mental problems and to keep her quiet. Deirdre, unlike Mrs. Mitchell, went out in public gatherings to speak in defense of the war and the government, embarrassing herself, her children, especially her husband who was being criticized, aloud and in whispers, for ‘permitting’ his wife to become a political figure in favor of the war. Melinda and Pamela begged her to stop being a stage spectacle; and had they known of vaudeville, they would have found what they needed, a long hook to drag her from the stage of her embarrassing antics. They were ashamed.

  While there appeared to be a wrenching in the younger Hurwitz family, the country was in contortions. However, Deirdre wasn’t hooked away and would go about the house blaming the students and the traitorous protesting military men returned from Viet Nam, who were angry at the loss of life and wounds they suffered, begging to save the country from itself and its folly.

  _______________

  Chapter XIII

  Sea’s Angry and Soothing Tides

  There was joy in Gregory’s home, a young woman’s screech when the letter came accepting Melinda at Radcliffe; Pamela was now away at the private school, Bennett, attended by her older sister; Brigit and Gregory had met several times for lunch or coffee, innocently they felt, both telling their spouses; Brigit talked of Robert and Kathryn, he now a senior in high school, she a sophomore, having skipped a grade. Two parents talked proudly of their children, wife or husband occasionally mentioned out of necessity, their heads tilted a bit downward, raised, gazing longingly in one another’s eyes, hands reaching toward one anther below the table, the troubled smiling, the thrill when they felt a hand on thighs, the desire never lost.

  By now, too, Jocelyn had sung her last performance; Aaron was considering retiring, finally weary of the constant battles he had won over time for his eventual recognized work, for his award of a Medal of Freedom because he foresaw the health needs for the country’s less fortunate.

  Mary, living with her partner Evelyn, was now the successful gastroenterologist also practicing nearby, still a visitor to Brigit’s home, loving her children as she did her nieces, the tender, loving hugs and cheek kisses when they met, the sadness at times Mary felt and wished away when she thought of Gregory and Deirdre. Brigit and hers was a friendship nothing could end.

  Oh, so peaceful, so wonderful this happy, sad life. For on a day in 1964, that tumultuous year, as Gregory examined specimens, he unconsciously placed a finger on a lymph node. There was no pain. He ignored it. Yet, he had been feeling fatigue, did now. He had been working longer hours. There were some nights he had been called in when something seemed amiss at a laboratory. About a month or two later he began to feel sweaty at night. Deciding to weigh himself, he noticed a troubling loss.

  ~

  By the next year, I thought I knew what was happening but tried to ignore it. Perhaps I shouldn’t have. They used to tell me I’d make such a good diagnostician. However, I ignored what I believed, until that day at the lab, and I just could not do more and went home to bed. I had a bad cold and was coughing. I placed my fingers on lymph nodes, thought of the weight loss. That night too I perspired more, coughed a lot. Deirdre, awakened, wanted to know what was wrong, but she had not forgotten and was obviously annoyed. She had wanted me to have sex with her, surprising me, but I was too weary. That was the beginning of another angry encounter. “I’m going to one of the girls’ rooms and sleep. I’ve got a long day tomorrow. I have to go to Boston.”

  I was about to ask her to put it off for a day so she could accompany me to the doctor. I decided, though, I’d see my doctor alone, thinking she’d probably go to Boston anyway. What I didn’t know was that she was meeting Étienne while I was being initially diagnosed with the possibility of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. There followed blood tests, talking and confirmation. I had cancer that could last for years and would need family support. How to tell the girls bothered me. Deirdre would take it in, think of what she could do for help. But how much, she’d be asking herself. I knew her mind, admitted the truth of her feelings toward me that I never revealed to anyone. That left my folks who would be exceedingly upset but who could not be kept in ignorance. My dad and I could talk. My mother would be terribly distressed. Mary. Mary would pretend, dress herself in her professional demeanor, then truthfully show her emotion in tears like mother’s. Oh. She would tell Brigit. If I asked her not to? She would promise, but would it come out? I believed so. And it did, later when I was in treatment and getting all those necessary blood tests. Mary kept Brigit informed.

  Her children now older, Brigit had returned to nursing. We did meet one day for coffee at a shop in our town, perhaps not the best idea. We sat as she cheerily told me about Robert and Kathryn, but suddenly her face changed when she glanced at me, her eyes watery.

  “Tell me how you’re holding up, Greg. I think so much about you.”

  Cheerfully, at least trying to be, I told her, “Well, dear concerned one, I still work. My brain still functions in the lab. I probably will be around for years yet. If it comes to that, and I get too weary, I’ll give up my position and just, well, you know, get into some research. I imagine some of the women or the men will let me help. Say, I’d make a great assistant.”

  “Oh, keep quiet.” She looked directly at me, with those eyes that always mesmerized me. “Greg, if you ever need me. Oh, damn, I wish I could be your nurse, be with you.” She looked away, forcing herself to take a sip of coffee.

  “Brigit, if I ever need you, would Thomas get upset?”

  “Perhaps. Maybe he would. He considers you a friend, though. Perhaps. I wouldn’t care, if you needed me. Promise that you’d let me know.”

  There was that ocean again, roughly separating us, the waves washing us in separate directions. “Brigit, I . . . I love you, always will.”

  “Greg, you shouldn’t say that. Don’t.” Her face re
ddened, I thought with pleasure, although her words were a gentle reprimand.

  “We should go. The children will wonder where I am. You know, I almost wish I could go back to the night shift. But I enjoy seeing the children when I come home. Then I’m awake too when Thomas comes, unless . . . . You doctors.”

  I placed my hand on her knee. She moved it hard against the touch and rose. “You tell me. I mean it. If you need me. But you have your family too, we both do, don’t we?” she spoke wistfully.

  The loneliness I felt was of loss when I paid the check and we left the shop and I watched her walk away. I could not stop, watching the slight sway of her hips, her lovely legs, the red hair blown by the breeze. At that moment, the memories hurt more than the cancer, were the cancer.

  ~

  Deirdre met Étienne who surprised her at the museum. He had persuaded the Board that they needed another member and to vote for her. Delighted, she also knew what it meant for Étienne and her, the pieces they could more easily prod the museum to take, having some control of the funds with her voice and vote. She would be the enchantress who she believed could influence votes. She did, with her soft voice, smile, and use of her practiced striking expressions at the appropriate time.

  After her election to the Board, Étienne and she went to his apartment in Boston.

  She called home to assure herself there was no suspicion.

  “Gregory, dear. I'm so happy. I know you'll be too.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was elected to the museum board. Isn't that wonderful? What an honor.”

  He forced his enthusiasm. “That's marvelous. The girls will be so proud of you.” Maybe.