Resilience

by Jessie Close

  “It’s what sisters do,” Glenn said quietly.

  The next day, however, she called me back and said, “Never mind!”

  “What?” I replied.

  “You’d always be telling me how to raise your child—this simply wouldn’t work.”

  Suddenly, we both broke into laughter.

  “You’re right!” I told her. “It was a terrible idea. I would always be telling you!”

  Because I’d already had an abortion, I wondered why I was dragging my feet. The answer finally came to me. I had two sons. The first time around, in Los Angeles, I had not been a mother. Now I was, and that made all the difference. I made a decision. I would have the tests I needed to make sure the baby was healthy, and in the meantime I would allow things to take their own course. If I spontaneously aborted, then it wasn’t meant to be. If this baby grew without complications, then I’d have it.

  Pretty simple. This was my pro-choice baby, on my terms.

  I was going to have Noah’s baby regardless of what he wanted. When I told him my decision, I fully expected him to run away. Much to my surprise, he didn’t. He wasn’t happy about my decision, but if I had the baby, he promised to “do the right thing” and not turn his back on his child.

  I wasn’t certain exactly what he meant by that, and because I was the one who’d decided to go ahead, I needed to get ready, both physically and financially. I immediately stopped drinking and started a vitamin regimen. I also started looking for a job. I had launched a renegade radio station with Brad and had managed a guest ranch with Tom, so the idea of running a business didn’t intimidate me. Besides, it would help me get my mind off Noah. I was still hoping that he would marry me.

  I learned that a downtown coffee shop called the Leaf and Bean was up for sale, but I knew it would be too pricey for me alone, so I telephoned Glenn and asked if she might be interested in investing in it with me. If she would provide the capital, I would put in the sweat equity.

  Glenn is a Yankee who appreciates the value of a dollar, so she listened politely to my plea but warned that she would only invest if I had a business plan that made sound economic sense.

  I started working on one with the same exuberance that always came to me when I was entering a manic mood. Not only was my plan persuasive enough for Glenn to invest, she also brought in a friend as a partner.

  It felt good to be a partner with Glenn. There had never been any jealousy between us, although I did envy her financial success. I had proudly followed her career. She had been nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actress after she appeared in The World According to Garp in 1982. The next year, she had been nominated for another Academy Award for playing Sarah Cooper in The Big Chill. Glenn had been generous when it came to including us in her Hollywood adventures. While she was filming The Big Chill, I had been pregnant with Sander, and actor William Hurt’s partner, Sandra Jennings, had been pregnant, too. The cast and crew put down bets on which baby would be born first. I don’t remember who won, but I enjoyed the camaraderie. Glenn seemed to make friends so easily.

  The Big Chill led to a starring role for Glenn, who played Iris Gaines opposite Robert Redford in The Natural in 1984. The following year, she appeared in Jagged Edge, a thriller that kept me on the edge of my theater seat. And in 1987, my sister played the starring role of a lifetime in Fatal Attraction.

  Tom and I had gone to see all Glenn’s movies, but I will never forget sitting in the Bozeman movie theater watching her performance in Fatal Attraction. Right before my eyes, Glennie turned into this terrifying, obsessed female predator who quickly became every cheating married man’s worst nightmare. She was wonderful in that part. In real life, Glennie couldn’t be further from her terrifying character, Alex Forrest. Yet on-screen she became this psychopath.

  For better or worse, that role became linked to Glenn. I was grocery shopping with my two boys when I spotted a tabloid newspaper at the checkout counter. A banner headline screamed: THE MOST HATED WOMAN IN AMERICA! A photo of Glennie was directly below it. That headline upset me until I realized the paper was about her character. Still, my boys wanted to know why people hated Aunt Gi.

  We didn’t see much of Glenn because she was so busy, but when there was a holiday our entire family would congregate in Big Piney at my parents’ house, and Glenn would fly in. She was always the same Glennie that all of us knew. No snobbery, arrogance, or superiority about her.

  I remember walking with her on a sidewalk in Bozeman once, and a complete stranger charged up to us, jabbed a pen and paper under her nose, and barked: “Give me your autograph!”

  He didn’t say “please,” and I wanted to smack him, but Glenn was gracious and signed it.

  I don’t think Tina or Sandy or I would want the attention that she received.

  You would have thought that after Glenn starred in Fatal Attraction, our family would have had a serious discussion about mental illness. Everyone knew I had been taking antidepressants and was subject to wild mood swings and strange thoughts. My father had admitted to me that he had depression, but none of us brought it up. Ever. Even Glenn didn’t see any connection between the crazed Alex Forrest character she’d portrayed and me. She thought I was irresponsible and impulsive. Mental illness just didn’t happen to us. It was unthinkable.

  Thanks to Glenn’s purse strings, I signed the sales papers and was handed the key to the front door of the Leaf and Bean, on Bozeman’s Main Street. I was five months pregnant, and my first thought when I opened that door was: What have I done?

  The Leaf and Bean had been in operation since 1977 and was well known downtown, but I immediately began putting my personal touches on it. A travel guide once described Bozeman as a charming town “in a John Wayne, Norman Rockwell, Bob Marley sort of way.” That fit in 1991. Bozeman’s residents were a curious blend of western ruggedness, apple-pie goodness, and northern funky chic.

  Because my sister Tina was an artist, I knew how willing most painters were to show their work. I invited local artists to display their paintings for sale in the coffee shop. I built a stage in one corner and invited local musicians to play on weekends. When classical guitarist Stuart Weber, a native of Montana, played for us, he donated a couple of professional stage lights. No one had brought entertainment downtown before, and the renters in the apartments above “the Bean” began complaining to city officials about the noise. I rallied other downtown merchants, and a fierce battle broke out, in which renters fought any sort of live entertainment. We won and kept the music going. I also added a bakery to the coffee shop so we could sell our own baked goods. My mom chipped in for a large new espresso machine, and I contracted with a company called Montana Coffee Traders to provide us with all the coffee beans we used in the drinks. I even invented my own drink, which I called the Tornado. It was a double shot of espresso in coffee with cream, with a shot of steam from the wand to blend it all together.

  The Starbucks phenomenon was spreading outside Seattle at about the same time as I was giving the Leaf and Bean a face-lift. We were attracting a variety of customers with different tastes. In the mornings and at lunch, we drew the business crowd. In the afternoons, teenagers began showing up because they didn’t have anywhere else to hang out. At night, we attracted younger adults out for the evening who wanted a place to relax and talk. I loved being in the center of the action.

  Managing any business, especially one that offers food and drink, is grueling work. Noah offered to help out at the Leaf and Bean as part of his new “do the right thing” stance. I gave him a desk near mine in my downstairs office but got angry when I caught him talking to another woman on the phone. That’s when I realized he was still seeing the same woman whom he’d been dating when I got pregnant. What happened next made our already dysfunctional relationship even more prickly. Noah began dating one of my new employees. When I confronted him, he openly admitted it, but said he still cared about me, too. He simply was not someone who wanted to settle down with one wo
man.

  The Leaf and Bean was going so well that when a store immediately next door to it, called Poor Richard’s, came up for sale, I got Glenn to buy it, too. Poor Richard’s sold magazines, newspapers, tobacco, and candy. I put Calen and Sander to work behind the counter but got worried when I realized they had front-row views of the soft porn available in the store in the form of Playboy and other men’s magazines. I didn’t like my boys being introduced to women who assumed such humiliating poses. I called Glennie, and we decided to eliminate men’s magazines from the store. I had two male customers holler at me. Somehow a reporter from a British paper heard and tried to tie Glenn into the flap—“Hollywood Star Refuses to Sell Smut”—but I didn’t bite. I told her it was my decision because of my sons, and that killed the story.

  In September of 1991, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Matheson Sinclair Close-Davis. Noah was involved in choosing the name, as were Calen and Sander. I was still clinging to the idea that someday the five of us would become a family, despite Noah’s girlfriends.

  I was so happy that I finally had a daughter. Jessie the fuckup had made the right decision in not getting an abortion. Mattie was beautiful. I put a crib in my office in the Leaf and Bean and brought her with me each morning to work.

  Mattie had an immediate impact even as an infant. The other women who worked there, including the one who was dating Noah, bonded with her and wanted to help me. Mattie even had an effect on our customers. I published a monthly newsletter to promote a sense of community and to alert regulars about upcoming special events. The paper was called The Leaf Tribean, and I began penning a feature under Mattie’s name, giving customers musings about the coffee shop from a baby’s point of view. Everyone loved it—and everyone loved her.

  During our first year, I had doubled revenue and made the Leaf and Bean more profitable than it had been. We were still the only coffeehouse in town—no kiosks, no other stores.

  Unfortunately, my personal life was not going nearly as well.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Journal entry, December 1991

  Giving birth has kicked my moods into high gear. Depression isn’t just about walking around in a black cloud; it’s the physical heaviness, nausea, and exhaustion that become a black cloud within you. I am the black cloud.

  Journal entry

  I felt betrayed yesterday because Noah said he would take Mattie to his house on Sunday, just the two of them. When he arrived, he’d changed his mind and was going to church with Cherie. If he can’t be a dad without his girlfriend’s help, then his time with Mattie will be limited.

  I am tired of being nice, of trying to not admit my rage. I will not have him play happy little family with Mattie and Cherie. What both he and Cherie put me through when I was pregnant with Mattie has not led me to be generous and loving toward them. If my rage includes payback, then that’s the way it is. I will no longer subject myself to his verbal abuse, his pretending with Cherie, his parading around with Mattie, as if he is some type of New Age sensitive guy.

  Journal entry

  God grant me the ability to forgive, to love, to let go, to grow. I am my own prison. I am my own pain. Why do I still believe there is someone out there who will love me, understand me instantly, someone who will see beyond the surface parts of me, someone who will trust what I say and tell me the very truth without hiding? I hide. I confuse. I get attached to surface. Is it possible to love without fear and have someone love me in return without fear? I want to forge ahead in my life with what I want to do.

  Journal entry

  I spoke to Glenn tonight. She asked me: “What is it that you want for yourself?”

  It is courage, humor, flexibility, patience, love, faith, honesty, generosity. Maybe I just haven’t been alone long enough. I need to take care of myself. I need to stop throwing myself into the pain and then wonder why I hurt. I need to take things slowly. I want to know that I can count on myself and trust my own judgment. I feel like I’m getting there, but I’m scared that I will slip back.

  Journal entry

  I am writing tonight from Glennie’s place. I told Noah over the telephone that I didn’t want him coming to my house anymore. I really did it! I was scared to do it. I feel guilty, but I did it. Here in New York, I have found an enormous relief being away from him and Cherie. I am grateful that I have finally given myself permission to say “NO” to him. I need to protect myself from him and my feelings of love toward him. Just because I wasn’t protected as a child doesn’t mean that I can’t do something to protect myself now.

  Journal entry

  It is 12:30 a.m. and I am letting Mattie cry herself to sleep in Glennie’s cottage. It is nearly Christmas and I feel very cruel and sad, but I do need her to put herself to sleep. I’ve been feeling very brain-dead from sleep deprivation and I know that she needs to learn to deal with this by herself. It has been almost twenty minutes of crying.

  To be here in Glennie’s place is a piece of heaven, sanctuary without any men around. I am sitting here staring into the flames that have now died in the fireplace and thinking about my request to have Noah stay away from Mattie and me for now. I am nervous that he won’t respect my request and I will acquiesce. I become sad very easily and quickly when Noah is in my house. I wish I didn’t have to go home. Bozeman feels like a burden to me right now. I feel empty inside when I’m in Bozeman.

  A poem about Noah.

  EVER

  I hear her soft breathing

  And know her small face is lying next to mine

  In the dark.

  And I think of you and how she

  Resembles you and how she

  Is an explosion of us

  And I think how I’d like to reach across her

  To find you there

  And play out my passion for her

  By touching you

  By feeling you inside me like I did when we made her

  And I’m glad I can admit to loving that part of her again

  The part that is you

  Even if we don’t listen to the sound of her soft breathing

  In the dark

  At the same time.

  Ever.

  Journal entry, Christmas Day, 1992

  I have written a letter to Cherie. “My wish for the coming year is that the pain will dull, that the lessons learned in 1992 will settle themselves comfortably in the folds of my heart, and I will be able to accept you living with Noah without fear of me—this is sent to you with the glimmer of light in my darkness.”

  My goal for myself is to face my fears, to stand up for myself, to protect myself, to love myself, to love my children, and to love life. I need to move on. I need to let go of Noah and my dream of us as family. I love my family. My family is my children and me. We are four and we love and have fun and feel complete when we are together.

  I don’t need a man to feel this way.

  Journal entry

  Noah no longer haunts my heart. I am in love with a writer and it feels warm and right. I wanted him from the first minute when I saw him, which was a year ago, when the first full moon was out. With him my life is full. He has promised to leave his wife. I tell myself I can wait for him to get a divorce. I need strength. I feel as if I am pedaling just to keep my head above the blackness. He is the light drawing me out.

  I know how difficult it is to leave a family. I have done it. I left Tom and it has taken me two years to no longer feel guilty.

  If he loves me, he will do this for me now.

  Journal entry

  I am angry. “Quality men” is a contradiction in terms. I need to protect my heart from now on. I need to be satisfied with me and mine, and not indulge in flirtation. There’s no one around here in Bozeman who I would flirt with anyway. There is only a huge group of very mediocre men or maybe men as a group are inherently mediocre.

  Journal entry

  Tom is staying in my house tonight to see the boys. I feel guilty about our marriage not working ou
t. I feel guilty about me and how I hurt him, and it doesn’t seem to matter how much he hurt me. I remember when my dad was away from me as a child. I didn’t love or know my dad the way that Calen and Sander know and love their dad, and now he is not with them. It hurts them.

  I’m scared. I’m scared that I am a bad mom. I am scared that I scream too much, that I won’t listen to my boys, that I will want to hit them when they are rude. Why am I like this??? Why does life have to be so damn difficult? Why do relationships have to be so hard? I want another adult here to help me, to balance my life, to be my partner. The stress on me is not a myth. I want someone who I love to actually love me.

  Journal entry

  I feel defeated, like crying, like giving up. Calen can be so cruel. I was sad and too tired to go to the market tonight and he got angry. He whines if he doesn’t get his way. He says insulting things. I feel I simply can’t ignore him. I cannot not react. I feel like I can’t live like this. This little man in my house trying to boss me around and not obeying what I say.

  Sometimes I hate all males, no matter what age. They think you are their slaves. I can’t handle a relationship right now with anyone. Just leave me alone. Maybe Calen will have to live with Tom in Utah because I won’t have him constantly being rude to me.

  How can I write that? I love Calen so much. Why do we have to go through this? What am I doing that causes him to be so cruel? What do I do when he is so wonderful, which is more than half of the time? I feel that he is a time bomb ready to go off any minute.

  Journal entry

  I am ending it. I was stupid to get involved with a married man, the writer. Why do I do this to myself? Why did I do it to him? It isn’t working. I am not waiting for him any longer. I am tired of being the one who has to wait.