Replacement Child

by Judy L. Mandel

  After that, I found work in a music store and met some musicians who encouraged me to start singing and playing guitar at coffee shops and clubs in the area. Steven would come with me, setting up my equipment and watching out for me. He was very supportive at the start, but it got difficult for him when he got a day job in a department store. Eventually, there were nights he couldn’t make it or would leave early to get some sleep.

  In a year or so, I quit the music store job and joined a full-time band. Again, Steven was behind the decision. I had put down the guitar and was concentrating on being a lead singer. The first band I was in played locally, so I was home most nights. Later, though, I joined a cover band that traveled up and down the East Coast playing the hotel circuit. I was away for weeks at a time. By then, Steven was working at an insurance company full-time. I knew he was frustrated with the job and the mundane path he seemed to be on. He began to pull away from me, both emotionally and physically, and I was starting to think that I could never make him happy. I was losing the feeling that filled the hole in my self-esteem. When my young husband pulled away, it was like my father’s indifference all over again. I think it was then that I started subconsciously looking for someone new to give me the validation I needed.

  chapter fifty-seven

  2006

  IT IS EXTREMELY cold today in New England. The cold brings a profound quiet to the neighborhood. No children are playing basketball in the driveways or street hockey outside my window after school.

  I’m reading through letters from my father. He had such beautiful handwriting, and—surprisingly—was the better of my parents at expressing his emotions on paper. Whenever I find one of his letters to me, buried in a sock drawer or folded in among my jewelry, I wind up blubbering at his words. I never heard these thoughts from his own lips, and I never knew them as a child. Almost all his letters to me were written after I was an adult, and most after he was seventy. Each of them ends with the warning to “be careful” about something I’m about to do or am involved in at the time.

  As I look back now, many of his letters still defined me in terms of my sister:

  Even when we felt you were being neglected you showed strength and understanding to love Linda as much as we did, and to show that love to her.

  Or the letters claimed that I was their hope, their healer, who he finally learned to love:

  One of the greatest gifts given to us at an essential time of our lives was when the gods delivered you into our hearts and lives. Your birth helped sustain us with some faith and hope. It’s taken me a lifetime—but you’ve taught me to say it and feel it—I love you and it’s forever.

  I was a compromise, a gamble, a winning bet:

  I compromised. I told mother we’d try one time—and if it takes—okay. If not, we’ll just continue with God’s plan. So, you see, you really are one of God’s special children.

  That was the dichotomy that characterized my relationship with my father. Surely he thought about the fact that I would not be here if Donna had lived. So, any love for me was a kind of betrayal. I was alternately a blessing and a painful reminder of her. Although I looked like her, I was flawed by a lazy eye. I was good, but could never be as good, as kind, as exceptional as Donna. How could I be?

  Sometimes I fantasized that I was Donna reincarnated. The true replacement child, in disguise.

  Judy in disguise—with glasses.

  chapter fifty-eight

  JANUARY 22, 1952 (THE CRASH)

  3:45 PM

  LINDA HAD BEEN playing in the living room in the back of the apartment when the plane hit, and she was instantly engulfed in flames. Donna was in the kitchen in the front of the apartment. My mother was between the rooms by the stairway after getting her mother and Sheila out the door.

  “Get the baby!” Donna screamed. “The baby is on fire!”

  My mother tried to see where her voice was coming from, but the smoke was so thick she couldn’t see Donna in the kitchen. She could not see her face. Later, she was grateful for this small blessing, that she would not be haunted by the image of her daughter’s last expression, the fear in her eyes, before she had to abandon her.

  “Donna, run!” my mother ordered Donna as she ran to the living room. “Down to the front door, it’s the only way out!”

  My mother saw no movement from Donna and was momentarily angry at her daughter’s defiance. Then she saw that Donna’s leg was wedged under a fallen beam that caught her before she could run. One of the crumbled brick walls of the structure rested on top of the beam. She weighed some fifty-one pounds. The beam and debris trapping her was easily one hundred times her weight.

  For a moment that passed like hours, my mother was frozen, torn between her two children. To run to the baby, or to help free Donna. Neither choice could be the right one. But, making none would condemn them both. She knew she had to move.

  Finally, she let Donna choose and followed her older daughter’s plea to go to two-year-old Linda.

  Reaching the living room, her heart seemed to stop when she saw the ball of flame that was her baby. Linda had stopped screaming. The quilt lying on the sofa was untouched, and she wrapped Linda in it and rolled her on the floor to put out the flames, ignoring the burns that now scorched her own hands. Then, she rolled the baby down the stairs that led to the outside front door. She turned back to get Donna, but before she could take a step, she heard the click of the door lock at the bottom of the stairs. With the door locked, she knew that no one would be able to open the door to retrieve Linda now lying just inside the door. She rushed down to the door—a move she questioned for the rest of her life—and released Linda into the arms of a man there. The stranger there was Henry Shubecz, who happened to be driving by when the plane crashed directly in front of him. He took Linda’s motionless body from my mother, smoke rising from inside the blanket, and saw the black charred skin and red burnt flesh peeking out. The smell slapped at him like a hand against his chest.

  My mother turned to go back inside when she felt a strong arm on hers. Seeing the ferocious flames consuming the stairway, Henry held her back, saving her life. Two passing patrolmen soon joined him to help restrain my mother just as the wooden staircase snapped, crackled like kindling, and collapsed along with the second floor. Henry handed the baby off to Reverend Schoenborn, suddenly there by his side, who carefully cradled Linda.

  Donna heard my mother go to Linda and run down the stairs. She waited for her to come back to help her. She was having trouble breathing through the suffocating cover of smoke and strained to see my mother’s figure emerge from the hot clouds.

  In her seven short years, Donna always relied on the steady protection of my parents. My mother was always there to curl her hair, kiss the cuts on her knees, console her disappointments. She had no reason to doubt the outcome of any dire situation, even this last one. She trusted—even as the flames closed in around her. She felt the heat on her torso and arms as she pulled at her mutinous leg, willing it to move. She heard a whoosh of fire, the crackling of burning wood, faint screams in the distance, and she smelled her own burning flesh mixed with the fumes of jet fuel. As the flames began to envelop her face and she lost consciousness in the smoke-filled apartment, Donna still believed my mother would rescue her.

  Outside, my mother’s screams merged with Donna’s— “Mommy, help me, Mommy, Mommy . . . ”—until they stopped.

  My mother collapsed in a heap on the hot pavement.

  MAKING HIS WAY through the gathering crowd on Williamson Street, Reverend Schoenborn carried Linda across to the Battin High gym. At that point, it was only a holding area for the injured, a morgue for the dead. Ambulances had not yet arrived. All the reverend could do was to hold Linda to keep her warm— and pray.

  My mother, in shock, was being led from the burning building by her de facto caregivers who had no hope of controlling her screams.

  Ambulances raced from four surrounding towns to rush victims to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.
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  MY FATHER WAS replacing a tray of watches in the front window of his store when he heard sirens and people yelling on the street.

  “It’s another plane crash!”

  A phone call from a neighbor confirmed his fear. “You better get home, Al!”

  He forgot his car was parked across the street and ran home.

  When he got to his neighborhood, it was a war zone. Ambulances were loading the injured and burned. Three fire engines lined the street as firemen fought the flames that shot out from the windows of his building and filled the air with black clouds. He couldn’t see into the opaque blocks of smoke that filled the windows.

  He spotted my mother on a stretcher, being lifted into an ambulance. When he called out, she did not respond.

  After he identified himself as her husband, the paramedic told him that their baby daughter had been rushed to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. The ambulance door slammed shut, sirens screamed. My father watched it pull away without a word. Nearby, he heard a reporter say to someone, “ . . . little girl in critical condition.”

  Staring up at the scorched remnants of his home, surrounded by melee, my father began to grasp the reality. And where was Donna? Was she still at school? Did she run? His mind raced.

  He found a fireman and grabbed his arm.

  “I have two daughters. One was taken to the hospital. I can’t find the other. She’s seven.”

  “One child was trapped on the second floor, didn’t make it out. Is that your apartment?” The fireman pointed to the second floor.

  My father could not breathe. The fireman caught him just as his knees gave way and lowered him to the curb.

  When he mustered his will to look up again, my father saw no evidence of a plane. It looked more like a bomb had hit the row of houses.

  He asked the fireman, “Did you see a little girl running away?”

  “Everyone who escaped is at Battin High.”

  Pouncing on this hope, my father headed across the street.

  The school gym, being used for triage, had the look of a battleground. The injured were strewn around the room as paramedics moved quickly from one to another, their quiet work punctuated by moans. Bloodied bandages were piled in heaps. Gurneys were loaded and wheeled across the hardwood floor, sounding like muffled machine gun fire. My father walked slowly around the gymnasium, searching each young face for Donna. The back of one little girl’s head looked like her, but as she turned her face to him, his hope was dashed.

  The neighbors, he thought, Donna ran to a neighbor’s house. Maybe the Earlmans’ up the street. He found a phone in the school office and dialed all the neighbors within walking distance but got no answers.

  Back out on the street, he scrutinized each window of his home for signs of life.

  “Al Mandel?” He heard a voice, and a fireman touched his arm.

  “Al, you should be at the hospital. We’ll look for your daughter, and someone will find you.”

  My father walked toward the hospital.

  chapter fifty-nine

  1975—1979

  I WAS TRAVELING WITH my most recent band on my twenty-first birthday. The band was staying in an old farmhouse in Troy, New York. It was a white clapboard with a wraparound porch and a big backyard. A small kitchen saved us considerable money on food. I had one of the four bedrooms to myself, and I commandeered one of the bathrooms. We drove forty minutes every night to our gig at the Top Hat bar. We usually played at Hiltons and Marriotts, but this job was a low point in our tour. The bar was a run-down establishment where we actually performed on the top of a bar that had been converted to a makeshift stage. Dancing in four-inch heels on the slippery surface was a risky balancing act each night.

  The guys in the band were pretty good about having a “chick” with them. They treated me like their sister for the most part. Except our lead guitarist. I had to keep an eye on him.

  Early on the morning of my birthday, I took off for a drive by myself, looking for some way to make the day special. Even living this kind of nonstructured life, I was beginning to feel too complacent, like it was all getting to be too normal. On this birthday especially I wanted to strike out and feel some adrenaline and know that I wasn’t playing it safe even if that was what my parents had tried to instill in me. They were still reeling from the fact that I was traveling alone with five men.

  I spotted an airfield in the distance and aimed for it. A sign out in front read GLIDER RIDES $25.00! A steep price since I was only making $200 a week, but the idea of the flight called to me. Flying on a wisp of wind would be just the thing to set the tone for my twenty-first year.

  There were six small planes lining the runway. I found a small man inside a small building on the strip.

  “How do the glider rides work?” I asked.

  “Hi, I’m Ed,” he said, extending his hand. “Come on over and take a look.”

  Ed walked me over to a sleek white plane that sat low to the ground. The wingspan seemed three times wider than the other planes. Very narrow, very long. The cockpit had just enough room for one person. Behind it was a second cockpit with its own controls. He pointed to that one.

  “You sit back there and I sit up front. Another plane with an engine,” he laughed, “tows us up to three thousand feet, finds a good gust of wind, and lets us go.”

  The glider had no propellers of its own.

  “What happens if the wind stops?” I asked Ed.

  “We just find the right current and drift back down to the airstrip. Or we drop like a rock!” Ed was quite the comedian.

  It was starting to warm up from the cool morning. A few white puffs dotted the deep-blue sky.

  “Okay. When can I go up?” I handed him my $25.

  “Now is good.”

  Ed disappeared for ten minutes and returned with the pilot for the powered plane who taxied a Cessna up to the glider and maneuvered it in to attach a tether line.

  He told me to hop in, but there was no door, so I lifted myself over the shallow side of the back cockpit and climbed over the stick in the middle.

  “That stick is what makes us go up and down—in case you have to use it.”

  I was too paralyzed with fear to ask him why I would have to use it. The fear felt good. The risk made me feel alive.

  I strapped myself in, put on a helmet, and tested out the radio that let us talk to each other.

  “Well, Judy, here we go,” he said. “When we get up to altitude, I’m going to let you fly her for a while. How does that sound?”

  “Great, really great,” I said, my heart pounding in my throat.

  Ed gave a thumbs-up to the Cessna. I listened to the engines wind up from a gradual purr to a full-throttle crescendo. We were towed down the runway and were airborne in seconds.

  The glider lifted lightly over the trees like a kite on a string.

  “Okay, let ’er go!” Ed called to the Cessna pilot.

  The engine noise faded and the Cessna dove down and away from us. I heard only a faint whoosh, a quiet wind as we rose higher off the horizon. The peaceful quiet took over my thoughts. More and more land came into my picture-frame view as we soared upward, the expanse spreading out below me. I could see where each road led, where the ends were dead, where they circled back into themselves. It was a clear vision we never see from the ground, and it gave me a swelling sense of control.

  Ed dipped the left wing and we descended slowly, then rode a draft of wind to climb higher.

  “I’m a little tired,” Ed said when we were high above the clouds. “I’m going to let you have it now. Take hold of the steering wheel in front of you and just hold it straight to glide for a while. If you feel us going down too much, pull the stick toward you.”

  I turned the wheel slowly to the right. The plane dipped down, and I pulled up on the stick to rise in a rush of power.

  I felt bright blue. Sun hot. Straining toward the top of the next current.

  I TRIED TO pinpoint exactly when it started. Was it
when I began traveling with the band, or staying out late singing at local clubs? Was it when Steven got a job at an insurance company, and we inhabited different worlds: me sleeping until 2:00 PM and getting home at 4:00 AM; him rising at 6:00 AM to go to work at a desk?

  When I thought of us in that small apartment in college, not being able to untangle from each other’s body long enough to go out for pizza, I was at a loss to understand what happened to us. I was blind to the warning signs after the first-lust of our new love started to ebb. I needed affection and reinforcement from him. A touch, a look, a word. Steven was removed, a cool island.

  I knew something was wrong when we took a three-hour car trip and didn’t say a word to each other. Usually, I would try to initiate some kind of conversation, but I decided to test out just how long he could go without speaking to me on this trip. My anger had begun to gestate into a fully formed monster when I started to count the weeks, then months, between having sex. The retreat fed every seed of insecurity that my father had planted. I wasn’t attractive enough, not smart enough, not worthy of love.

  As we lost some vital connection, we would not speak for days at a time. When I reached for him, he would pull away. He would feign sleep when I came to bed. He would turn his head when I approached. He was unhappy, and I couldn’t fix it. Then, he hatched a plan to go to South America to be a photographer for National Geographic—without me. That plan never materialized, but the thought of it had driven a wedge between us. I was hurt that he’d even considered it. When he decided to take some time, alone, to think things through, our marriage began an unstoppable unraveling.

  I was singing at a lounge in a hotel nearby our Connecticut home at the time, just after Steven had moved out. When a guy at the bar started talking me up, I was ripe for an adventure. Gary was a pilot and told me how only a short drive away there was a place to skydive. I had another vodka and tonic.