In Pieces

by Sally Field

  Without any catching-up words or “how’ve you been” chatter, we moved directly into the living room to sit on my new green velvet couch, purchased at Bullock’s department store, and looked at each other. Then, as if preparing to give me the results of a biopsy, he carefully told me that he’d met someone at a Sigma Chi party, that she was a wonderful person, and that he was going to marry her. All the blood went out of my body.

  It was the last thing on earth I thought he was going to say, and in a state of stunned confusion I asked him, “Why?” over and over. It made no sense. He was going to school, living in a house with a bunch of other guys. Where was he going to live with his new wife? How were they going to live? I didn’t know what made me more upset, the fact that he was going to attach himself so completely to someone else, or that he was forcing me to deal with something completely removed from all the things I was actually dealing with. And no matter what I said, no matter how logical I was, he kept repeating that he wanted to get married and simply wanted me to know. “She and I have discussed it; nothing’s decided yet,” he continued. “But I told her I had to talk to you first and that’s hard on her. She’s a little sensitive about you.”

  He then went on to tell me that, oddly enough, he was going to marry the actress Screen Gems had hired to play the Flying Nun after I’d originally turned the part down. Unbeknownst to him when he met her, she was the same person who had shot for two days on the pilot before being abruptly fired when I suddenly changed my mind. As mind-boggling as that was, I could barely hear him, much less register how Steve’s new girlfriend must be feeling now, knowing that he was in the midst of meeting with me. I was rapidly flipping through all the stages of grief: disbelief, then anger, then haggling, then sadness. Finally, after mindlessly arguing back and forth, trying to convince him that this was a ridiculous idea, that he hardly knew her, that he shouldn’t be getting married at all, there was a long heavy silence before he said, “Then you marry me. I may not know her very well, but I do know you, and you know me. We belong together. Marry me.”

  I’d always kept the thought of Steve tucked safely in my back pocket, like a return-trip ticket if I ever needed to go home. I loved Steve, was comforted by his presence, and I was waterlogged with loneliness. But I didn’t want to get married. I needed away from his passions and emphatic opinions that would send mine into hiding. Plus, there was a sliver of me that felt like he was breaking into my house again, determined to be in my life whether I wanted him there or not.

  No family photos of the trip, only a picture from a 1968 issue of TV Radio Mirror, another fan magazine.

  “Marry me, Sally, or I’ll marry someone else.”

  When Jocko threatened that I might not work again if I didn’t do The Flying Nun, I agreed to do the show not because I wanted to, but because I was afraid. When Steve told me that if I didn’t marry him then he’d marry someone else, I accepted for the same reason. I was afraid.

  The year before, I’d been the maid of honor at my friend Lynn’s big fairy-tale church wedding—a memory I will always cherish. Everything was white lace and pink rosebuds, with a gaggle of bridesmaids covered in lavender tulle floating around, and Lynn’s mother dressed head to toe in mauve satin, her eyes overflowing with tears. All of it an elaborate celebration of my friend’s marriage to a man she’d met during her first year of college.

  I’ve always loved ceremony and tradition (except birthday parties), but I never even considered planning some kind of wedding event. I felt uncomfortable, underplaying everything. Don’t worry about an engagement ring. Who cares. It’s no big deal. I wasn’t feeling celebratory or excited about building a life with the man I loved, only glad that Steve would be waiting for me when I got home from work, and that was enough. I didn’t even bother to tell my father or Joy about our decision. And even though my brother and Steve had always been best friends, I felt awkward when I called Rick, never expecting more from him than a distracted, half-hearted congratulations, which is what I got. Steve’s relationship with Princess hadn’t changed one bit over the past year—if anything they were closer. She had grown up with him in the family, so the idea of my marrying him didn’t change a thing.

  But nothing felt real until I told Baa. Her opinion was so important, affected my own so powerfully, that many times I was afraid to hear what she had to say, afraid that if she disagreed, I’d begin to equivocate on something I had felt certain about moments before.

  I don’t know why my voice turned into a defensive plea, don’t know why I felt embarrassed or ashamed or what the difference is between them. I only know I felt relieved after telling her of my decision and then tried to dismiss my disappointment when she reacted with understanding instead of joy. Did I want my mother to feel excited? Was I hoping she would make me feel something that I did not?

  A few days later, I was sitting in my bubble of a dressing room waiting to be called to the set when I heard a soft knock on the door, followed by a sweet “May I come in?” Because she rarely visited the set, and never without a plan, an electric jolt of oh no ran through me. As Baa stepped into my cramped, overheated space she fumbled her words, instantly revealing to me that she was nervous, which made me nervous. Quickly scooping up the pile of stuff stacked on the worn upholstered chair, I stashed it on the floor, and as I was sitting back down on the equally worn love seat, she handed me a needlepoint kit she’d purchased. She was always getting me little gifts, poetry books or rose-scented hand cream, but needlepoint had become my secret weapon against the lure of the craft service table. After a moment of silence, she said, “I miss you, Sal.”

  “I miss you too,” I answered, but suddenly wasn’t sure if I did. Since Steve had been back in my life, my need for her had dissipated.

  “Sally, listen. I don’t want to butt into your life… but I’m your mother and I love you… and have to tell you what I feel… even if you don’t want to hear it. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t. You can’t marry Steve. You can’t.”

  I felt smacked in the face. I’d made a decision, thought she’d agreed with me. I had felt comforted by her acceptance.

  “How can you be saying this? You’ve known him since we were kids… you love him. What are you saying to me?”

  “I’m sorry, Sal. But he’s just not right for you.”

  “How do you know? How do you know what’s right for me?”

  “Because I just do. I know this makes you mad at me. I wish you wouldn’t be… but I just have to tell you what I think.”

  “I don’t want to hear what you think. I don’t want to know.”

  “You can’t marry him. I had to tell you.”

  If she had suggested that we wait awhile, that it wasn’t the right time for me, for either of us to get married, I might have agreed, might have even felt relieved. But she was saying that Steve was not the right person, that after all these years she could see that he was not the man I should marry. Why? Was there something she knew about him that I didn’t? Why wasn’t she asking me about what I was feeling, about my loneliness? Why didn’t I ask her to tell me precisely what was causing her to say this? I asked her nothing. I pushed away from her, filling in the blanks with my own answers as clearly as if I’d heard the words: She feared that if I married Steve I would no longer need her. She needed me to need her and I always had, turning to her instead of making friends, so ultimately I had no friends. She wanted my allegiance. But was that really the truth? Why didn’t I ask any of this, ever? Neither of us ever asked the questions that needed to be asked.

  I felt bewildered and betrayed by my mother.

  Steve and I got married on September 16, 1968, in Las Vegas. No one from my family was there. No one I knew was there, except Steve. Ten days later the second season aired.

  12

  Peter

  I KNEW HE WAS there before I actually knew. Even before I could register any changes in my body, I knew. I didn’t try to be pregnant. Then again, I didn’t try not to be pregnant. I
just didn’t think about it. Perhaps all thoughts of conceiving stayed locked in the attic along with everything else sexual or erotic, the part of me that stayed out of Steve’s sight. Be that as it may, six months after driving to Las Vegas, then returning the next day as a married woman, just as filming on the second season was wrapping up, I realized that I was with child and everything changed.

  It seemed as if I’d gone to sleep in a cave and woken up on a mountaintop with a view of the whole world. I felt honored, proud to be female, powerfully capable of miracles. But the thought of having to tell anyone at the studio, who would then inform the horrified network, made me feel protective not only of the baby but of myself. Or maybe, protective of the baby, and therefore myself. My soon-to-be baby was nobody’s business but my own. I didn’t want to hear their qualified words of congratulations said through clenched teeth or take the chance that I would sound apologetic or ashamed. Steve made all the appropriate calls, becoming a real partner as he alerted those who needed to know in a businesslike fashion, while I sat listening from a safe distance, feeling cared for. And after many calls back and forth, plus a few days of tearing their hair out, the producers came up with a plan. We would shorten our hiatus, go back into production earlier than planned, and—if the scripts could be written in time—we’d have almost the entire season in the can before mid-October, my ninth month. At that time, I’d be given maternity leave.

  When Lucille Ball discovered she was pregnant in the midst of filming I Love Lucy, her condition was written into the series, creating a television event in 1953 when she gave birth to little Ricky on the show and Desi Arnaz Jr. in real life. When Elizabeth Montgomery found out she was expecting her second child, an entire season of Bewitched was developed around the impending arrival of the little witch, Tabitha. But sadly, there were no story lines that could be woven into The Flying Nun to accommodate my condition—at least not in 1969. Instead, I’d have to hide my nonimmaculate conception.

  It helped that the habit I wore was already a shapeless sack, but when filming began on season three, the loose belt around my middle was no longer loose and soon became an elastic-backed, expandable item, growing as it moved higher and higher up my body with each episode. Before long, I started carrying bulky objects in every scene: a stack of books or a vase filled with flowers, flowers that went from daisies to gladiolus as my girth became more and more difficult to hide. Finally, there was nothing big enough I could carry, since a refrigerator was out of the question. From that point on, I had to be shot in close-ups.

  Also, new methods of flying, without wires and that godforsaken harness, had to be invented. Luckily the stunt person had been doing all the wider outside shots since halfway through the first year. It was only the closer ones where I was needed. But it couldn’t have taken much thought to change the position of the camera and shoot me from below instead of straight on. I’d stand on a platform, then lean over the wide, specially built railing, and with the green screen behind and slightly above me, Sister Bertrille could be sent anywhere. A quicker, less torturous way to achieve the same half-assed illusions. Hallelujah.

  And as that year moved along, hitting my marks while holding an armful of purposeless props, reciting meaningless dialogue—all the monotonous moments that for two years had made me feel powerless and trapped—became background noise to a larger symphony inside me. I didn’t even care what I looked like, waddling around the lot dressed as a nun. If I hadn’t been a walking sight gag before, I sure as hell was now.

  One afternoon, when they were setting up a shot onstage, I went outside to get a glimpse of daylight and a 7UP from the vending machine. It must have been early October because I was so round my habit was getting tight. And as I walked duck-like down the wide ramp—counting change in my hand—I collided with a tall man walking up, deep in conversation with a heavyset woman. The coins flew in the air every which way, and when I heard the instantly recognizable voice say, “Oh my,” I looked up into the face of Cary Grant. All I could say was “Oh God.” Without missing a beat, he said, “Oh God is right,” then gestured toward my bulging midsection, adding, “Does he know about this, Sister?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Always important to keep him in the loop,” he replied, then picked up all the coins, carefully placed them in the palm of my hand, flashed me that Grant grin, and walked on. I’ll never forget it.

  With Steve handling our finances, I purchased a home in Bel Air and for the fourth time in three and a half years, I moved. It wasn’t a mansion behind iron gates, not like the houses that Bel Air is famous for, but a smaller one way at the top, past all the grand estates. I had no idea of its cost because I was still too frightened of money to look. I knew only that it was a small midcentury-style house situated in an area reminiscent of my first Tarzana neighborhood and felt like something I could afford. But unlike my childhood home, it was bright, with lots of glass and a view looking out on the Santa Monica Mountains. A perfect place to launch a new life.

  And every piece of me felt him, a foot sliding down, an elbow poking out, and I’d want to shout, “WOW.” I knew what side he preferred I sleep on and how he calmed with my touch. I rested when I was tired and ate when I was hungry because he needed me to. With my childhood soulmate at my side, and the constant assurance of the future pushing against my rib cage, I felt… contentment. And only now do I realize that that is what I felt.

  Once, I woke in the night unable to get comfortable and fall back to sleep. I poked Steve in the side, then watched him shoot out of bed in a panic, thinking something was wrong. But no, I just couldn’t sleep. We got up and I perched on the kitchen stool watching him make banana pancakes, something I kept saying I didn’t want. With a big tray of food between us, we sat in bed, watching an old black-and-white movie, and I know nothing will ever taste as good as that syrupy mess. Maybe it was hormonal, but I’ve had three children and it never felt quite like that again. Everything quieted in me and I let myself need someone, allowed myself to be dependent on this one person and never doubted that he would be there. Steve. I had that once in my life. Maybe that’s enough.

  Early on in this nine-month journey, I began having war dreams. Terrifying, hard to shake, Technicolor dreams that would invade my contentment, growing more intense with each visit. In the dream there was always a war; that much stayed the same. It was the enemy that varied; either the Germans, or the Japanese, or the Mongols wearing pointed helmets and riding massive black horses. I was always separated from my family—not sure who, other than Steve—and desperately trying to find them, when I’d hear the bombs beginning to fall off in the distance (though how the Mongols had bombs I cannot tell you). At first, the battles were very far away, but with each dream the enemy got closer, until finally I could actually see their faces. I’d be lost, alone and watching their approach, frantically looking for a place to hide.

  One night in late October, I dreamed that the battle was on top of me, with the German soldiers so close I could see their uniforms, hear their voices speaking a foreign language. Feeling trapped, I quickly scurried under a bush and held my breath as I watched their boots step up to the shrub while they stood over me talking. And then the unthinkable happened. They caught me, pulled me out of my hiding place, shoved me along the path, then raised their rifles and shot me. I remember thinking, Oh my God, I’m going to die. As I started to fall, the action began to slow, and while moving in slow motion, I thought, Boy, oh boy, this is good. They’re really going to love this. A feeling of accomplishment bubbled up and when I smashed face-first into the dirt, everyone applauded. It was a scene. I’d been acting. It was self-imposed fear and not really happening. I woke not terrified but triumphant, and acting had somehow been a part of it. A feeling of strength, of solidly standing on my own two feet, stayed with me for days, even into the following week.

  At two thirty in the morning on November 10, 1969, one week before the baby’s projected due date and four days after my twenty-thi
rd birthday, I woke with an unmistakable yank from deep inside, accompanied by a massive cramp in the small of my back. I’d learned about Braxton-Hicks contractions, had grown used to the tight knotted-up feeling of my body rehearsing for its opening night, and with this one sharp tug, I knew rehearsals were over. The show was about to begin.

  But if this was opening night, I had no idea how to play my part, didn’t have a clear picture in my head of what my body was going to be doing—or how. Birth training didn’t exist at that time and the only thing I’d learned, wandering around the maternity ward for an hour with the other expectant parents, was where to park, how to sign in, and what to bring. I wanted to be prepared, so I did the only thing I knew to do: I packed and repacked all the items listed on the brochure we had been given, and that was it. It’s not that I wasn’t nervous or curious, but the only book I could find was one written by Dr. Spock, explaining what to do with the baby after he arrived. It supplied zero information about how the little creature was going to get out in the first place.

  Steve and I played our parts perfectly. We parked in the right spot, we reported to the proper desk to alert the hospital staff of our arrival, and after that I became a prop in the production. First, I was examined by a young resident who confirmed I was truly in labor, then handed to an intensely friendly nurse who said with a sweet smile, “I have to give you a little enema.” She then proceeded to hang what looked like a Sparkletts water bottle over me, which—to my way of thinking—was not a little enema. After dressing me in a white gown, putting me in a white bed, and covering me with a white sheet, she exited stage left. I went through the various stages of labor alone and clueless, waiting for the periodic visits from either the nurse or—the true star of the show—the doctor. And since I had nothing to guide me but instinct, as the process became more intense, I began rolling from side to side, chanting loudly, putting myself into a hypnotic trance as if I were a Native American preparing to go into battle. I don’t remember seeing Steve after I left him signing papers at the admissions desk, though he may have come in while I was preparing for war.