So you begin to read, slowly, deliberately. But mostly you’re looking. You’re searching for your name. And as you read her words you begin to skim and turn the pages faster, your eyes becoming robot eyes, scanning the white paper and the black ink looking for the letter M. Until you get to the end, when you understand that your name is not there. She’s written a memoir and has not mentioned her children. And then she sent it to you. That’s what she wanted you to know: while you were forgetting her, she’d also forgotten you. So you go back to the tight cool corner that keeps you sane. You make believe she’s dead so that there’s no possibility that anything she does or writes or doesn’t do or doesn’t write can ever break your heart again.
Your father dies. You’re aware of feeling nothing. And then you get a call a few years later that she’s died, too. You feel an enormous, bloated nothing. Silence over many years has helped, but with this added layer of death, you feel free from them both. But mostly from her.
Then your brain begins to ooze from its weep holes. You remember what you forgot to forget. The odor of Mrs. Paul’s fried scallops late at night. Creeping down the hall to find her in the kitchen with the lights blazing, reading a mystery with a scary skull and crossbones on the spine. Crawling into her lap in the middle of those late nights and sticking your nose into her face to get an unforgettable whiff of seafood and Pall Malls and Jergens lotion. Your love of her smell. Perhaps she forgot to forget that also. And Mother, if you remembered this, too, did you also remember that you loved me?
Acknowledgments
Effusive thanks to my agents, Susan Feldstein and Paul Feldstein, who responded in less than five minutes to an out-of-the-blue query (is there any other kind?) from a former oboe-playing, not-so-sure writer, asking for my complete manuscript. We signed two months later.
I will be forever grateful for the honor of working with my brilliant Little, Brown editor, Vanessa Mobley, who not only managed to convince me that I am, in fact, a writer but also demonstrated that she knows my voice better than I do. I cannot imagine a kinder, more attuned editor than Vanessa.
At Little, Brown, my publisher, Reagan Arthur, and my production editor, Pamela Marshall.
My copyeditor, Barbara Clark.
Thanks for kind and generous assistance: Catherine Michelle Adams, Adrienne Brodeur, Ann Chou, Terril Gagnier, Constantine Kitsopoulos, Ralph Olsen, Charles Salzberg, Peter Weitzner, and the New York Writers Workshop. And particularly my dear friend Tim Page, whom I’ve known since our days at Mannes. He read and encouraged and supported me throughout the writing of this book.
I am so grateful to Dr. Howard Welsh, who helped me to locate my bravery.
And finally, endless thanks for the greatest gifts given to me:
Kirsten Flagstad, whose voice resounds forever in the air.
Mrs. S., wherever you are.
The former titans of the old 74th Street Mannes College of Music.
The red-haired woman on 23rd Street who pushed me.
The 1 a.m. strollers in Central Park who ignored me.
The doctors who saved me.
Thank you all. Madly, truly, deeply.
About the Author
Marcia Butler was a professional oboist for twenty-five years until her retirement from music in 2008. During her musical career, she performed as a principal oboist and soloist on the most renowned New York and international stages and with many high-profile musicians and orchestras—including pianist André Watts, composer and pianist Keith Jarrett, and soprano Dawn Upshaw. She lives in New York City.
Marciabutlerauthor.com
The Skin Above My Knee Page 20