Michael's Secrets

by Milton Stern

  Florence pulled up in front of the house as Hannah’s 1958 brown Country Squire Wagon was parked in the one-car driveway. Hannah was standing at the door, smoking a cigarette, and holding a suitcase. She was dressed in her best maternity dress – a black knit with a Peter Pan collar and pearl buttons. She was also in full make-up, false eye-lashes, Pond’s “Peaches in the Snow” lipstick and all. At five-foot-ten with her black bouffant hair-do, she hardly looked pregnant as her figure, except for the bubble in front, had remained unchanged. Hannah stepped out, locked the door and made her way down the walkway to her car.

  Florence took one look at her, grabbed the suitcase and said, “Vaysmir, Hannah, what the hell are you made up for? You’re going to give birth, not audition!”

  Hannah ignored her and proceeded to walk around the front of her station wagon, aiming her key for the driver’s side door as Florence followed her.

  “Hannah, I’m not driving your car. We’ll go in mine,” thinking that Hannah would actually let her drive her car for a change, for whenever Hannah went in Florence’s car, she drove.

  “Florence, I’m not letting you drive me. You can ride along. I’ll drive,” Hannah said as she sat down behind the wheel.

  Florence would have none of it and pulled Hannah’s key out of the ignition, which fortunately for Florence’s short arms was left of the steering wheel in the Ford. Hannah stomped her cigarette in the ash tray and crossed her arms in front of her.

  “Either get in my car, or give birth in yours,” Florence said as she took the suitcase with her and walked to her own car. Florence put the suitcase in the trunk and opened the passenger-side door for Hannah, who resigned herself to riding with Florence and walked over to her Valiant. Hannah tried to get in on the passenger’s side; however, the bench seat was so far up that she had no room for her legs, so she got out and settled herself into the back seat on the same side.

  Florence shut the door, walked around the front of the car, got in, started the engine and pushed the button for drive, satisfied that she had won this battle. She looked at Hannah in the rear-view mirror and saw her wince in pain.

  “Another one, Hannah?” she asked as she watched her friend squint and breathe heavily.

  Hannah did not say anything, just waiting for the pain to subside. When it did, she reached for a cigarette in her purse and put it in her mouth just as Florence pulled out and made a speedy U-turn to head up Beech Drive, cutting off three cars in the process and throwing Hannah into the door. The cigarette didn’t even fall out of her mouth.

  “Florence, be careful. Pay attention, you’re going to get us killed.”

  But, Florence was on a mission and ignored her as she sped up the street doing fifty, going through two stop signs and a red light. She leaned into the wheel as if making a getaway, and fortunately, she did manage to stop at the light at Jefferson Avenue, not wanting to risk crossing the busiest street in Newport News against a light. When she stopped, Hannah finally lit the cigarette that was dangling from her lips, all the while thinking that calling Florence was the craziest thing she could have done. At normal speeds, Florence’s driving was frightening, but now it was downright insane, and Hannah could not remember the last time she actually rode in a car when Florence was behind the wheel. The light turned green, and Florence burned rubber – no small feat from the slant-six engine – as she headed down Jefferson Avenue. Once downtown, Florence pulled onto Chesapeake Avenue and looked in her review mirror, spotting a bus on the sidewalk.

  “Hannah, look at that crazy bus driver. He’s driving on the sidewalk,” Florence said as she smiled.

  “That’s because you ran him off the road, Florence!” Hannah said, retaining the fearful look that was on her face during the entire trip to the hospital.

  They reached their destination, Mary Immaculate Hospital at 245 Chesapeake Avenue, in an unheard of twenty minutes – and in one piece. Florence ignored the parking and lane restriction signs and pulled right up to the emergency room door. Two orderlies came out waving their arms and telling her she could not park there. Florence pushed the button for neutral, pulled up the park lever and hopped out of the car, running around the front to open the rear door for Hannah. Then, she said to the orderlies, “My friend in is in labor; get a wheel chair before she breaks her water in my new car.”

  Hannah stepped out of the car and said, “Too late.”

  As the orderlies wheeled Hannah inside, Florence got back into her car and parked it in the lot, retrieved the suitcase from the trunk and rushed in to join her friend. When Florence returned to the emergency room, she could not find Hannah and decided to take the elevator to the second floor to maternity. Once off the elevator, she looked down the hall, and she found Hannah sitting at the registration desk. Florence ran over to her just as the nun began taking down Hannah’s information.

  “Mrs. Bern, is your husband here?” the nun asked.

  “My husband died three months ago. He was killed by a runaway golf cart.”

  The nun gave a look of incredulity as she raised her pen, so Florence interrupted with assurance, “That’s the truth. I’m here with her.”

  “And, who are you?” asked the nun as she looked at Florence, who was a vision in purple.

  “I’m Florence Greenberg. I am going to be the baby’s godmother,” she said with a smile patting Hannah on the shoulder.

  Hannah started to say something, but another contraction came on, causing her to wince in pain. The nun, sensing her distress, stood up and yelled for two of the other nuns who were also nurses, to take Hannah immediately to her room. Within minutes, Hannah was in her room, and Dr. Billy Bernstein, who had arrived before Hannah, walked in to examine her. He was a youthfully handsome man with light-brown hair and a medium frame, who did not look old enough to be in college, let alone her doctor. He asked her if she wanted an epidural, and Hannah did not answer as the look on her face was enough to tell him yes.

  “Oh and Sister,” Dr. Bernstein said to one of the nuns, “Make sure you get all that make-up and those eye lashes off her. We cannot have that in delivery.”

  “You have got to be kidding me!” Hannah protested, raising her hands to protect her face. Florence just stood there shaking her head at Hannah. “Can I at least have a cigarette?” Hannah asked.

  “Not here,” the nun answered. “You can only smoke in the waiting room.”

  Dr. Bernstein lifted up Hannah’s legs to check how much she had dilated and crouched down like a catcher. “You better get that make-up off quickly and get her in the delivery room as soon as you can!” he shouted to the nuns. “Hannah, you’re ready,” he said as he stood up.

  Florence knew she would not be able to accompany Hannah, so she told her, “Good luck,” and stepped out of the room just as Rona, Doreen and Arlene stepped off the elevator. The three girls spotted Florence and walked toward her.

  Five-foot-nine-inch Rona was dressed in brown Capris and a brown and white striped sweater, with hair as orange as ever and styled in a reverse flip. She had pink lipstick on her large mouth, amber jewelry in her ears and around her neck and was the first to speak, “How did she get here? Who drove her?” she asked as she stood to Florence’s left, looking down on her friend.

  “I did,” Florence answered, while looking up at Rona.

  Doreen, standing as tall as Florence and on her right, wearing a peach silk shift, her then-brown hair cut in a page boy, and wearing her mink coat, looked at Florence and said with a frown, “And, she got here alive?”

  “You girls. I’ve been driving for almost twenty years!” Florence shouted to the three of them.

  Arlene, standing directly in front of Florence and whose figure at the time was more fifties buxom than sixties svelte, wearing a navy blue dress with white buttons and a matching coat and hat, said, “You call what you do driving?” As the owner of Feld’s Department Store along with her husband William, Arlene was always the best dressed of the bunch. She was also the oldest.

 
Rona pulled out a cigarette and started to light it, and Florence, ignoring all their comments, told Rona she could only smoke in the waiting room as she broke the semicircle and made her way down the hall. The other three girls caught up with her. Walking side-by-side, the four of them, all experienced in the pain of childbirth – Florence, Rona and Doreen with three children and Arlene with two – sympathized with their friend, Hannah, who would spend Thanksgiving Day pushing another Jew into the world.

  In the delivery room, Hannah looked down at the pink gown they had her wear, and shook her head, imagining how she looked with no make-up and wearing her least flattering color. She wanted the delivery to be over with as quickly as possible.

  Dr. Bernstein was crouched at her feet and asked, “Hannah, you ready?”

  “Yes, let’s get this over with,” Hannah answered.

  Two nuns stood beside Hannah, holding her hands as two others were at the doctor’s side.

  “OK, Hannah, I can see the baby’s head, so you’re going to have to give me one good push,” Dr. Bernstein instructed.

  Hannah closed her eyes and tried to push with all her strength, but the baby would not budge. The doctor tried to reach in, but his eyes opened wide as he noticed the baby had very broad shoulders.

  “Hannah, the baby has a big head and broad shoulders, so I am going to have to perform an episiotomy.”

  “Will it hurt?” Hannah asked.

  “You’ll feel a pinch,” he assured her as he was handed a scalpel.

  He began the incision, and his eyes opened wider. He then asked Hannah to push one more time. She closed her eyes and did as instructed, and the baby started to come out. And, it continued to come out, and continued to come out, and continued to come out.

  The nuns gasped as the baby finally arrived, and Hannah was alarmed at their reaction.

  “He’s huge!” one of the nuns exclaimed as she put her hands up to her mask.

  Dr. Bernstein’s eyes were still wide open.

  “And, we are going to have a Bris!” another of the nun’s exclaimed, clapping her hands, knowing of all the good food that would be served in the hospital during that time when mothers remained for ten days after giving birth. The nuns loved a good Bris – and a good white fish.

  Hannah was not quite sure what comment to register. “Is he all right?” she asked and then heard a loud cry like none she had ever heard before, as it sounded like a scream for help.

  “It’s a boy, Hannah, and a big boy at that!” Dr. Billy Bernstein exclaimed in the excitement of his first full-term delivery and his precise prediction of the baby being born on Thanksgiving Day. After Hannah expelled the placenta, the doctor sewed up the episiotomy with seventeen stitches.

  “Do you want to see him?” one of the nuns asked as she swaddled the baby boy and walked toward Hannah.

  “Thirty inches, eleven-point-six pounds,” one of the other nuns announced to everyone in the delivery room. Gasps could be heard all over the room again. Her baby boy was brought over to her and placed on Hannah’s chest. He looked at her with the greenest eyes she had ever seen and fell immediately to sleep. Hannah looked down at her first born not knowing how to react to finally holding the baby who had caused her to lose her figure, albeit temporarily, and left her with seventeen stitches.

  “What will you name him?” one of the nuns asked, standing next to her with a clipboard.

  “Michael … Michael Adam Bern,” Hannah answered as she looked at her son.

  The nun then wrote the name down on a clipboard along with hair and eye color – black and green. Michael was then taken away from Hannah, but she didn’t care. She was exhausted and just wanted a cigarette and her make-up bag.

  At the Bris, while holding baby Michael, Florence decided she wanted another baby. On November 26, 1963, she gave birth to Scott. At Scott’s Bris, Rona, while holding Florence’s baby, decided she wanted another child, and on November 28, 1964, she gave birth to Neil. At Neil’s Bris, Doreen, while holding Rona’s baby, decided she wanted another child, and on November 5, 1965, she gave birth to Marci. At all three Brisses – and one baby naming, Arlene never gave a second thought to having another child.

  On November 23, 1963, Michael’s first birthday, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, and Michael’s birthdays went downhill from there.

  Chapter Two

  Michael sat in the waiting room of his therapist Dr. Andrew Mikowsky’s office, having arrived fifteen minutes early as usual. He was thumbing through a magazine when the door to the doctor’s office opened and he said, “Come in, Michael.”

  Michael stood up, put the magazine away exactly as he found it and walked past the doctor, who closed the door behind them as Michael settled himself on the couch. He sat there with his hands clasped in his lap while Dr. Mikowsky picked up a legal pad and a pencil from his desk and sat opposite Michael in his leather chair. He was nerdy in a sexy kind of way, with dark brown hair and eyes and obvious Semitic features. He was around five-ten with a slender build and an engaging smile as well.

  “So, Michael, how are you holding up since the show was cancelled?”

  “I’m doing all right,” Michael said. “I have the opening of Birthright to worry about now.”

  “Why are you worried?” the doctor asked.

  “Well, I’m not exactly worried,” Michael said. “I call Stanley King, the director, every week, and he says everything is on schedule. He also told me not to worry as the writer has little to do with the film once it’s in the can and ready for release. It’s the actors who have to make all the appearances to promote it. I just feel kind of weird as if I have no control over it.”

  “Do you need to have control?” Dr. Mikowsky asked as he wrote on the pad without taking his eyes off Michael.

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m used to television where I was there from beginning to end. In film, once you write the script, you pretty much fade into the background once it goes into editing,” Michael said as he leaned back. “But, no need to talk about that.”

  “OK, what do you want to talk about?” Dr. Mikowsky asked.

  Michael shook his head, “I don’t know.”

  “Well, are you seeing anyone?”

  “You know I don’t date anymore,” Michael said as if the answer was obvious.

  The doctor put the pencil to his chin and said, “Michael, how long has it been since you had a boyfriend?”

  Michael stood up and walked over to the window, looking out at Sepulveda Boulevard. He turned around and leaned back on the sill and said, “I think about six years, ever since I broke up with Philip, but we’ve talked about all that.”

  “To be honest, Michael, we never really talked about that. You avoid the subject of relationships,” he said as he gave him a knowing look.

  Michael returned to the couch, straightened the pillows and sat down.

  “Michael, what are you afraid of? Why do you not want to date?” he asked, knowing that his patient would either change the subject or avoid the question altogether, but he always hoped for a moment when Michael would open up. After all, it took almost two months for Michael to open up when he first came to therapy exactly one year before, right after his godmother, Florence, died, which he also failed to mention in the beginning.

  Michael took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and said, “Because whenever I meet anyone, I lose my identity and end up miserable.”

  Dr. Mikowsky was surprised that he gave a reason. He then flipped the page on his legal pad and started sketching. “Michael, I want to show you something.” He then held up what he had drawn – a large circle with a small circle in its center. “This is what you describe as a relationship. You are the small circle in the big circle.” He then pointed to the other drawing, which was two identical circles that were intertwined like a figure eight. “This is a healthy relationship. Each partner retains his identity while maintaining a healthy balance.”

  Michael looked at the drawings and said, “Yes,
well that’s all interesting, but the guys I meet are big circles, and I’m always the little circle.” He then raised an eyebrow as if there was no further discussion needed.

  “Michael, it’s not the guys you meet, it’s the guys you prefer to date.” Michael was silent. “You have probably met men who are capable of healthy relationships, but you choose not to be with them, and what we need to understand is why,” Dr. Mikowsky said. “Do you have any theories as to why?”

  Michael looked at the ceiling and thought for a moment. He then looked at the doctor and said, “Probably because I never saw a healthy relationship when I was growing up. How Freudian is that?”

  * * * * *

  It was October 1969, Michael’s mother, Hannah, and her new boyfriend, Bart Shimmer, went away for the weekend and left Michael with his Grandma Rose, his late-father Adam’s mother. That Monday, after school, he was given strict instructions to go home from school, put on his football uniform and return to football practice at South Morrison Elementary School. But, when he arrived home to an empty house, he did not feel well and missed his mother, so he decided to stay and wait for her to come home.

  They pulled up to the house around six o’clock, and he ran out to greet them. His mother opened the passenger side door and yelled at him, “What the hell are you doing home? Why aren’t you at football practice?”

  “I had a stomach ache, and I missed you,” he said, upset with his mother’s reaction after she had not seen him for three days.