by Amy Gary
Once in Maine, Margaret and Dot parked in Rockland to wait for the ferry. They made a last-minute stop at the grocery store for long loaves of French bread, cubes of beef for the dogs’ stew, steaks, chops, and butter. The boat was delayed, so they stepped into the county clerk’s office to see what land or homes might be for sale. They were shown a list of properties, and a little house with a peaked roof looked just right. It was adjacent to the property Bill had shown her years earlier, where skunk cabbages and lush forests gave one the impression of being in the midst of a jungle.
That same afternoon, Margaret and Dot decided to tour the property with Bill. The little house was nestled into the hillside and backed by trees. There was no road, so it could be approached only by sea. The house had once been the home of the quarry master, and the land was dotted with pieces of granite—huge, rough slabs as well as smooth-cut columns—that never made it to their intended architectural structures. Where stones were extracted, large quarry holes were filled by underground springs. Like Cobble Court, the home’s basement had served as a winter shelter for goats and sheep and also had no electricity or running water. That didn’t dissuade Margaret. She was charmed by the apple orchard in the back and a door upstairs that opened out onto thin air. Its staircase had long ago become the victim of too many brutal Maine winters. Margaret quickly returned to the clerk’s office and bought it. The price was so low she was able to write a check on the spot for the full amount.
Margaret placed her rocking chair in front of the door that opened to nothing. In the mornings she watched the sun illuminate the flower-filled meadow, the sea, and the islands beyond. She watched the seals play in the ocean and the fog roll in over the hills. She placed her desk by the adjacent window and hung mirrors around the room to reflect the sea and light from every direction.
In the front of the house, there were stone steps to the first-floor entrance. Two small bedrooms lay off the main room, and a set of steep steps led to an upstairs kitchen with a small table and woodstove. If she needed to accommodate a large crowd of friends, rental houses nearby were usually available.
Margaret turned the well into a makeshift refrigerator. Perishables like butter and milk were suspended by appropriately labeled ropes. She stored wine in streams to be plucked out while on hikes or picnics. One of the granite quarry pools on the property was designated as a cold-water bathing spot. For those who didn’t want to plunge into the quarry’s freezing water, Margaret created an outside vanity next to a tree. She turned an old washtub upside down and placed a washbasin and pitcher on top. Above, she tacked a gold leaf mirror to the tree.
Margaret boldly named her new home the Only House. It was the only house that could be seen from the water, and it was the only home she truly owned. She was a writer who could support herself, and this little house on a flowery hill was all hers.
Fourteen
1944
So all the bunnies put their heads together—
as close as their whiskers would let them get.
And they wiggled their noses.
And hoisted their ears up and down.
And thumped their heels on the ground.
And they thought the way bunnies think.
“BOMB PROOF BUNNIES”
Unpublished
In the spring of 1944, Margaret and Michael were living peacefully together. Margaret’s time away in Maine and her cozy writing refuge in the city allowed her ample opportunity to reflect and write. Michael, too, was happily working on her performances. They told themselves they were allowed one drink per day, although sometimes they gave in to an extra martini or two, especially if they asked Bill to join them for dinner or drinks.
Michael didn’t want to be the sole focus of Margaret’s romantic desires—she thought the younger woman too needy. Margaret doubted Michael’s love for her on an almost daily basis. What she didn’t question was her love for Michael.
In the moment she saw Michael lying back in her bed like a God in repose—noble, beautiful, and free—Margaret understood why people would die for another and why she fought so hard for this relationship. She prayed that if Michael’s words once again speared her heart, she would remember that moment—remember Michael’s swept-back hair, her lean face, the way she lifted her head, and the tone of her voice.
* * *
In April, Michael’s son Robin died in his sleep. His boyfriend, Billy Rambo, had committed suicide the prior year by jumping off the Empire State Building. Billy had been questioned in a murder case that was making tabloid headlines. After that tragedy, Robin began drinking more heavily and almost never left his house. Michael brought a priest by to talk to her son and tried to cheer him up, but nothing she did lifted his spirits. He sank deeper into a depression and rarely got out of bed. He complained to Michael that he felt abandoned not only by his lover but also by her. He confessed that he was jealous of Margaret.
On the night he died, he wrote farewell notes to friends, his mother and sister, and one to Margaret. Then he took an overdose of sleeping pills. He said that he wanted to be with Billy, and he requested that his body be buried next to his lover’s in Indiana. In the letter to Margaret, he apologized for treating her with such bitterness.
Grief-stricken, Michael moved into Robin’s house and stayed for months. Margaret and Diana implored her to come back to New York, but Michael wanted to be alone with Robin’s things. She wrote letters on Robin’s stationery and had everything in Robin’s bedroom moved to the study in the Connecticut home. She kept everything exactly as it was in his house, down to the papers on his desk. The only change she made was to swap her bed for his.
Margaret tried to assuage Michael’s grief the only way she knew how—by memorializing Robin in a story. She asked Leonard over to lunch, but when he arrived she told him he would not get to eat unless he agreed to illustrate a manuscript she had written called Robin’s House. It was the story of an inventive boy who turned the rooms of his house into a creative paradise. He never needed to leave his home because it had everything he needed. Leonard knew right away why she had written the book and refused to agree without thoroughly considering the story. Margaret caved and served him lunch anyway.
Many of Margaret’s male friends were serving in the military, but Leonard didn’t pass the physical exam for service. Bruce Bliven and Margaret spent Bruce’s last night before deployment traipsing around the city. Clem Hurd was to be stationed in the South Pacific, so Posey also left for the West Coast to stay with her parents. That way she could be closer to her husband.
Most everyone was involved in the war effort one way or another. Michael was a volunteer with the Red Cross, and Dot was an official spotter along the Connecticut coast. Margaret wrote a series of stories for children who might be frightened while huddling in bomb shelters, but “The Bombproof Bunnies” never made it past the rough-draft stage. Neither did “The War in the Woods,” a comical story in which a bear declares that all the animals in the forest must behave like him, even the bees. All the other animals try to be gruff and eat bark like a bear and follow the bear’s ridiculous ultimatums, such as one that states wildflowers may no longer be wild. Eventually, the bear realizes that it is best for the animals to be themselves, and peace is again restored to the woods.
Like most businesses during the war, publishing had to adapt to the reduction in materials, as well as in sales. To reduce the cost of printing, some publishers decreased the number of pages in their children’s books. Margaret railed against the reductions—it was almost impossible for her to reduce the conventional forty-eight-page storybook to twenty-four pages. In addition, fewer books were being published in general.
The economic slowdown of publishing during the war, coupled with Margaret’s earlier failure to agree to contracts, took a toll on her finances. Frustrated with a now-unreliable income, she worked out an agreement with Golden that guaranteed her a monthly payment. She struck a deal that paid her $300 per month on future royalty earnings. In ex
change, she granted Golden the rights to three books per year.
* * *
When Michael returned to the apartments in the fall, she teased Margaret about her prolific nature. If Bank Street wanted Margaret to write four hundred pages on a mouse’s squeak—she could do it. This time, Margaret was good-natured about the jab. It was unlikely Margaret would ever leave children’s books for a career as a serious author of adult literature. Like Michael, it seemed everything came easier to Margaret than writing something of merit for adults. When Michael suggested they work together on a musical for children based loosely on the Bible, Margaret leaped at the idea. Michael could forgive her anything except faults that were her own, and this would be a good distraction.
Lucy Mitchell sent Margaret copies of the textbooks they had written and edited for D. C. Heath, along with the teacher’s editions she’d been paid extra to write. In those, Margaret created ways for teachers to use her material in the classrooms—projects, discussions, and questions were a few of the ways she guided the teachers to make the textbooks more interesting. In the package, Lucy added a note relaying how disappointed she was by the final product and a comical eulogy she wrote about the demise of a textbook. Her dream was dashed, but her sense of humor had returned.
In the textbooks was the beguiling word-patterned poem “Good Night, Room” Margaret wrote as a substitute for one of the nixed songs. Being reminded of the nighttime ritual she shared with her sister so long ago spurred an incredibly detailed dream that night. In the dream, the room was hers, but the color scheme was that of her downstairs neighbor’s—bright green walls in the living room accented by red furniture with yellow trim. It felt like stepping into a colorful Spanish painting.
Instead of saying good night to the things in her childhood room, in the dream it was her black telephone, lamp, and brush she bade good night. She wrote the story down as soon as she woke. Too impatient to wait for a typist, she called Ursula Nordstrom and read it to her. Ursula agreed it was almost perfect and decided to publish it.
Afraid of losing the visions in the dream, she included more notes than usual in the manuscript. She wanted the light in the room to subtly illuminate each object as it was mentioned. The entire room was to slowly dim as the story came to a close. The window was to be like her own, large enough to feel like the moon hung in the sky just for her. She chose a new title, more fitting with the way the moon loomed in her dream—Goodnight Moon. For both Margaret and Ursula, Clem was the logical choice as illustrator, but it would have to wait until he returned from the war.
Inspired by her neighbor, Margaret eventually painted her own apartment walls green and yellow. She also bought a red velvet cover for her antique poster bed, confessing to Michael her fear that the room would look like Christmas décor. But in the end, Margaret loved the bright colors of her revamped room.
Fifteen
1945–1946
In every book
At every film, I look
At the chorus or the star
I’m reminded of you
And of only you only and
That’s the way things are.
If I were now to die
I would be most happy
For I’ve never gone so far
As to love someone more
Than sun and the moon and star and
That’s the way things are.
“THAT’S THE WAY THINGS ARE”
White Freesias
As usual, Margaret spent her summer in Vinalhaven. She also went to Vermont for a week while Leonard stayed at the Only House, working on a story she wrote while looking out at the little island in front of her new home. When she came back, she found he had spent the entire time lying around and had not painted a single picture. At first, she was furious that he had wasted so many days. Then, as he painted, she realized he had been carefully studying the island. Like her, he had watched how the weather and waves created an ever-changing view of the tiny island to create stunning illustrations for The Little Island.
Other friends, too, came to visit the Only House. This time, they came ready to improve the little cabin. Dorothy Bennett, her Golden editor, added on a chimney and fireplace. Margaret watched her work, fascinated by the intensity with which her editor slung mortar and laid the bricks. For three days, Dorothy, her tongue held in the corner of her mouth, worked from morning until the last rays of the sun vanished from the sky to finish. Other friends helped Margaret construct a porch and build an outhouse. By the end of September, her house on the flowery hill was shaping up.
* * *
The world, too, seemed brighter. The war had ended, and by December, Margaret was in Cobble Court waiting for Clem and Posey to arrive from the airport on a snowy evening. Margaret’s valet, Pietro Ricci, had lit a good fire before he left and had stacked more wood neatly beside the fireplace. There was enough there to keep Clem and Posey warm through the night, and Pietro would return the next day with food and more fuel for the couple.
Clem’s tour of military duty in the South Pacific was over. He and Posey were returning from the West Coast and needed to find a new place to live. Margaret offered them Cobble Court as a temporary residence while they searched.
As Margaret waited for them to arrive from the airport, she admired her and Pietro’s handiwork. Pietro had worked for Michael’s son Robin for many years. After Robin’s death, Michael hired him to work for Margaret and herself. Pietro was born in Italy and, like Margaret, was fluent in French, so she nicknamed him “Pierre.” He walked the dogs, kept the apartments and Cobble Court clean, and could substitute as a cook if other household staff weren’t available.
Pietro had polished the interior brick floor of Cobble Court and Margaret the brass. She had spent two Christmas seasons working at Altman’s in their silver department and had come to love polishing silver and brass; it always gave her a sense of accomplishment. Her little living room glowed in the firelight.
Margaret would have Christmas dinner with her father later that month, but her mother was in poor health and living with Margaret’s brother, Gratz, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Margaret would not be visiting there anytime soon. Whenever she thought about her mother, pangs of guilt struck. She regretted not visiting more often when her mother had lived in New York.
Margaret was very excited about the Hurds’ return. She’d kept in contact with Posey, and they had collaborated on a couple of Golden books, but nothing was better than working together in person. When the three of them were in one another’s company, they inspired each other.
Ursula made only a few changes from the penciled Goodnight Moon manuscript Margaret submitted. She didn’t keep the bit of humor Margaret added at the end in tiny script. She wanted a little drawing of the child saying good night to a cucumber and a fly.
Her draft listed the author as Memory Ambrose, a pen name she adopted from Bill Gaston’s housekeeper. She gave Clem the nom de plume “Hurricane Jones” after one of the islands near her house in Maine. Ursula deleted those noms de plume but kept Margaret’s title of Goodnight Moon.
* * *
The baby boom that followed the end of World War II brought with it the golden age of picture books. More sales meant publishers could afford new printing and manufacturing techniques. This inspired Margaret to think more broadly about what might be possible in book design. Pop-ups, die-cuts, shaped books, and novelty add-ons were a few of the ideas Margaret handcrafted in the dummy books she created to pitch to her publishers. She found a luminous paint that would glow in the dark and tried to get a printer to make an ink that would do the same on the pages of a book. That experiment didn’t work, but she painted stars on the ceiling of her apartment that glowed down on her as she slept.
Not only were books including novelties, but the marketing of books also stretched in new directions. Margaret and Leonard’s next book, Little Lost Lamb, came with a full-color poster that was suitable for framing. It was such a new concept that the publisher had to reassure buyer
s that the removal of the poster would not damage the book.
One of Margaret’s cleverest ideas was immediately picked up by Ursula for Harper. Margaret made a petite, hand-sewn book she called Little Fur Family and wrapped it in real rabbit fur. Garth Williams illustrated the fur-covered book that was placed into a slipcover box with a round hole to showcase the fur. Harper advertised it to the publishing trade as the year’s best book, and Publisher’s Weekly agreed, declaring that not since Pat the Bunny had there been a novelty book so novel. The retail price was $1.75, and a mink version was available on a limited basis for $15. Harper printed seventy-five thousand copies, and fortunately, parents and children found the book irresistible. Unfortunately, so did the moths in Harper’s warehouse. A vast portion of the inventory was ruined. The next edition was covered in faux fur.
* * *
That summer, Margaret was the maid of honor at Dot Wagstaff’s wedding. Margaret heartily approved of Dot’s new husband, Louis Ripley, whose wealthy family owned a cattle farm in Litchfield. The wedding, though, caused Margaret to feel the sting of her age and her single life. She was ready to make a change.
Bill’s divorce proceedings had not yet concluded. Weeks before, Margaret sat with Bill and a few of their friends outside a courtroom door as his lawyers negotiated an arrangement. Margaret was convinced that Lucy was dragging this out to keep Bill from marrying her, but as she watched the attorneys enter and exit, she came to see that Bill could have bought his freedom long ago—he simply didn’t like the price tag Lucy had placed on the settlement. After that, it wasn’t unusual for Margaret to place a wall of pillows between her and Bill if he wanted to spend the night in her bed.