The gravity of what had happened still didn’t seem to register with Ruth.
Hi Stephanie, how are you? she breezily e-mailed me a few days later. I’ve heard Mark is a little better. Can you let him know I love him and I’ve been thinking of nothing else . . . I know tomorrow is your anniversary and I didn’t feel it was appropriate to send a card.
Mark was discharged after a week. He seemed fresh, rested, and newly focused. He hadn’t seen the kids yet. I had told Audrey her father was away on a fishing trip, and Mark and I stopped at a pet store on the way home to buy her a bright blue beta fish in a bowl. “Let’s go home,” I said.
Neither of us mentioned what had become obvious. Mark’s mother had made her choice. His cry for help had been rebuffed by the one person he needed most in that lost, lonely moment when death seemed more inviting than life. Bernie could not be abandoned, but Mark could. What had been perplexing about Ruth’s loyalty became, quite possibly, unforgivable.
· seven ·
DECEMBER 2010
I was getting him back.
The months following Mark’s suicide attempt were uneventful. I was afraid that being estranged now from his entire family would worsen Mark’s despair, but he insisted that the intense therapy he had received at the Haven had given him a new perspective, and I noticed the change, too. I could actually see the old Mark beneath the sadness that had come to envelop him like a thin, brittle glaze. Even though the civil lawsuits had been piling up, he no longer seemed as obsessed as he had been with the smear campaign against him. Every free moment was no longer spent tethered to the computer, and I was relieved to see some sparkle again in his hazel eyes. Mark was finally beginning to believe he might be able to pull himself out of the mess his father left behind and rebuild a life for us.
Our good friend Joe hired him as an office manager in his high-end Wall Street head-hunting business just after his suicide attempt, and being back in the work world had given Mark a sense of purpose and identity again. The office was just around the corner from our apartment, and the casual atmosphere was the polar opposite of the stuffy formality that had defined Bernie’s offices in the Lipstick Building. Mark banished most of his suits to a storage closet in the Greenwich house, saying they made his skin crawl now to even look at, much less wear. Joe kept his office in a hip loft with cool art on the walls and two boxer dogs, Winston and Lola, who served as receptionists. Mark usually took Grouper in to hang out, too. We rented a cottage in Montauk for the summer, and I felt like a newlywed again when I went to meet Mark’s train from the city every Friday, anticipating our standing date for a romantic dinner before going home to the kids and spending the weekend playing with them on the beach.
That fall, we decorated the Greenwich house for Halloween, invited my family over, and took Nick and Audrey trick-or-treating. It felt like old times to hold hands on a chilly evening and laugh at how adorable our kids were as we went from door to door and then raided their treat bags as soon as they weren’t looking.
A year into his new job, Mark had worked hard to prove himself, and it felt now more like a future than a favor. Mark was full of talk every evening about what had happened at the office that day. His real-estate newsletter was gaining momentum as well. I was taking my second year of child life classes in grad school and still volunteering at the hospital, which I loved, and it felt like Mark and I were getting ourselves on the same page emotionally again. He was allowing himself to feel a sense of optimism and even anticipation. We vowed to make the holidays enjoyable again, without the sense of dread that had hung over December for the past two years. Mark fired off e-mails to ten friends, inviting them over for drinks and hors d’oeuvres on Christmas Eve, and eagerly accepted the invitations that came our way. I allowed myself to hope that the fog of anger and self-pity that had engulfed him since he learned of his father’s epic betrayal was beginning to lift at last.
Best of all that winter, we were starting to reconnect as a couple again. My heart soared like a lovesick schoolgirl’s when Mark suggested we slip away after New Year’s for a romantic three-day weekend in the Berkshires. We’d been hunkered down for so long, and he’d always panicked or lashed out at me when I’d suggested little getaways before. He had been too scared of bankruptcy to spend any money, and too paranoid about the media to risk being seen enjoying himself. Now we desperately needed some time to focus on our relationship instead of our situation. We had been married for only six years, and this mess already had consumed a full third of that scant time together. A short road trip to the picturesque mountains of western Massachusetts wasn’t going to heal everything in our wounded marriage, but it was a promising start. I was more than willing to take that for now. We were in a good place.
Audrey had just turned four in November, and we had had a few friends and family members over for a cupcake and jewelry-making party, with the kids bashing away at a giant cupcake piñata hanging from an exposed steel beam in the foyer. Her big gift that year came from my parents: a trip to Disney World. My mother, Audrey, and I would spend four days there—the first time for all of us—and I knew we were in for a girly-girl extravaganza.
Audrey was beside herself with excitement at the prospect of meeting the Disney princesses in person, certain that they would recognize her as one of their own. She’d been wearing the costumes practically 24/7 for the past year. I’d always been something of a tomboy myself, and it cracked me up to see this miniature Cinderella in her shimmering blue ball gown, gliding across our living room floor on her scooter. I would wander into the kitchen in the morning to find Belle eating pancakes at the breakfast counter, with Grouper cast as the Beast, a role he was more than willing to take on when it involved table scraps falling into his vicinity. This was going to be the trip of her small lifetime, and I couldn’t wait to see the expression on my daughter’s face when she saw her fairy-tale idols for the first time. Mark was thrilled for her, too, and I felt a twinge of guilt about leaving him behind with the baby.
“Do you wanna come?” I offered.
“Naw, it should be an all-girls thing,” he said. Nick was twenty-two months old, and already as rough-and-tumble as Audrey was dainty. Mark was looking forward to some serious male bonding, with juice-box binges and a Night at the Museum marathon. Nick so loved that movie that he had refused to leave when we’d taken the kids to the American Museum of Natural History the week before to pose for pictures in front of the giant Easter Island stone statue whose character in the movie says, “Hey, dum-dum! Give me gum-gum!” (“Where’s the dum-dum statue?” Mark had asked the long-suffering museum guard who clearly answered that question all day long.)
Apart from spending some quality time with Nick, Mark had plenty of work to keep him occupied while Audrey and I were away. He and Joe were developing a business-oriented social media site, and Mark was still getting up at four every morning to put out the latest issue of his Sonar Report newsletter. Once that was done, he would enjoy his ritual alone time with a cup of coffee, then whip up some French toast or pancakes for the kids before strolling to work at 7:45. On the morning of December 8, Mark was busy making himself his favorite “turkey eggs”—scrambled egg whites with slices of turkey and ketchup or hot sauce mixed in—while I finished getting Audrey ready for our flight.
“Want a bite of turkey eggs?” he teased, knowing how revolted I was by his blue-plate special. He waved a forkful at me, laughing.
My mom arrived, along with our cab for the airport. I know Mark kissed me good-bye, but I can’t remember that kiss anymore. I tell myself he didn’t know then, that he hadn’t decided yet that it would be our last.
“Sure you guys will be okay?” I fretted.
“Nick and I will be having wild parties,” Mark assured me.
In the cab a few minutes later, I got my first text from him:
Hi, you know that you’re going to JFK, right?
I smiled. This was the old Mark, my Mark. Before his father’s disgrace had consumed him, Mark used to spend his entire day chatting with me via text or e-mail, our connection never broken. We would share pictures, links, one-liners, funny videos. We’d flirt, we’d fight, we’d gossip and banter, discuss and debate. Those thousands and thousands of little exchanges were the brushstrokes on a never-ending mural that was our story.
I texted him back from the plane before it pulled away from the gate.
We’re on the plane. Is Nico up?
Then again once we arrived.
Just landed.
Cold or hot? Mark immediately wanted to know. The weather forecast had been unusually cold for Florida, and we’d been worried about rain. How was Audrey? Nick slept til 7:30.
I reminded him to e-mail Audrey’s registration for summer camp, or the slots would fill up, and described the cheerleading team with crazy competitive mothers who’d been on our flight.
Audrey says she misses her daddy, I told him as we waited for the shuttle to the hotel.
That’s good.
We headed for the park, where Audrey made a beeline for the nearest gift shop to replace her threadbare Cinderella gown with the latest in princess couture, which was, of course, the exact same dress. (Why do princesses only have one gown?) Properly attired, Audrey was ready to take in the Magic Kingdom.
It’s a little overwhelming, I texted of our first impression at two thirty.
I know. Can be brutal. Do only what she can, Mark quickly advised. He’d done the Disney drill with Kate and Daniel when they were young. This was my first time. My mom and I may have been amateurs, but we were ready for the challenge: We had stocked the mini-fridge in our hotel room with a couple of bottles of wine before venturing out.
When Audrey caught sight of Cinderella’s castle for the first time, my own eyes teared up at the look of pure wonder and joy on her little face. I was quick enough to capture the expression with my phone’s camera and immediately sent the picture to Mark. Minutes later, I got a text message from him saying that the trustee was going to sue Audrey for $11,000 that Ruth and Bernie had gifted her.
Not a shock, Mark texted. Still sucks.
I was furious that he had just ruined such a happy moment for me, and sickened that the fallout from Bernie’s crime was getting to the point of suing my four-year-old daughter in her Cinderella dress. For a sum that wouldn’t even put her through preschool in New York, let alone turn her into some rich little heiress. It was pathetic. I punched back a response.
Why does shit like this always happen when I am finally trying to enjoy life again . . . Is it in the paper?
Mark assured me his lawyers were on it, and that there was nothing in the media. He tried gamely to placate me.
This stuff is nothing new, so enjoy Disney! That castle pic is adorable. Was she so psyched to see the castle?
He could just wait awhile, as far as I was concerned. I typed back a cryptic Yeah and ignored him for an hour while Audrey, delirious with delight, tried to take in her fairy tale come true.
Around five thirty, I tried to explain my anger and frustration to Mark. It was familiar ground by now, and even though I wanted him to keep me apprised of any developments that affected us as a family, I resented the timing of this bit of news. Couldn’t I just go a few days without having to worry? Didn’t Audrey deserve one hundred percent of me on this special occasion? Couldn’t this once-in-a-lifetime memory be left untainted by Bernie?
I just hate that every f’g time I start to feel normal, something bad happens.
I understand. Mark sent me a peace offering: a photo of Nick taking his bath. I instantly melted, of course.
He is so cute.
The three of you keep me going, Mark answered. Let’s focus on that. You are all adorable. He sent me a few more photos of the baby before signing off for the night. Sweet dreams.
Mark being able to let go of something Bernie-related and me fixating on it was a total role reversal for us. Maybe I had just been able to distance myself from it more in the beginning because I had been expecting Nick at the time and was determined to keep my stress levels in check and enjoy my pregnancy. But now little things were starting to get to me.
The latest arrest had just happened in mid-November, when Bernie’s longtime associate JoAnn Crupi had been charged with helping perpetrate the Ponzi scheme. Jodi pleaded innocent, but faced up to sixty-five years in prison if convicted. I had met Jodi and her partner at one of the Madoff Montauk summer parties and had fallen in love with the two little boys they had adopted from Guatemala. Jodi and I had spent time sharing mommy stories, and she was the one who told me about the Elf on the Shelf tradition for Christmastime. After the scandal broke, though, my stepfather told me a very different story about Jodi.
In 2007, Marty had screwed up his courage and made an appointment to talk to Bernie in his office at the Lipstick Building about investing a million dollars of his retirement savings in the exclusive Madoff fund. Marty knew he was way out of his league—a piker by Bernie’s standards—but he hoped the family connection would persuade Bernie.
“Marty, the truth is, the fund is closed and I am not taking any more investors,” Bernie had told him. “But how could I say no to my mispoche? Sure, go see Jodi Crupi and she will give you instructions on where to send the money.” Bernie stole Marty’s money as readily as he stole everyone else’s. Neither Bernie nor Ruth had attempted to contact my parents after Bernie was exposed. Jodi Crupi’s arrest literally brought Bernie’s crime home to me. The grand scope of what he had done was awful enough, but the true cruelty was in the casual intimacy of it. Bernie, by his own later admission to interviewers, had known by then that his scheme was unraveling. How could he have looked me in the eye for another year, sat at my dinner table, played with my daughter, knowing he had swindled my parents?
With the funk of Bernie and concern about the new lawsuit swirling in my head, I barely slept that night at Disney World. When I woke up, I could feel myself coming down with the cold that had already made its way through the rest of the family. Audrey finished her strawberry Mickey Mouse waffle for breakfast and I dragged myself out the door for another day in Fantasyland, hoping Audrey’s excitement would energize me. We spent much of the morning standing in line so Audrey could have her picture taken with each and every princess, and Cinderella’s wicked stepmother and evil stepsisters, too. “I’m a big fan of yours,” I told the wicked stepmother, posing for a photo. “I’m a stepmom, too.” I documented each VIP encounter and ride for Mark.
How’s it going? Mark wondered at lunchtime. The pictures are staggeringly cute. She looks like she’s having the best time. We caught up by phone that evening at the hotel, when Mark called as usual to say good night. All was well on the home front. My cold was getting worse, and after a full day in the park, Mom, Audrey, and I were ready to hit the sack early. We’d braved the total bedlam of the character dinner, with costumed characters visiting each table, and I was already dreading the character breakfast we’d signed up for on our last morning.
Nick has a little diaper rash.
That’s sad. Are you having fun with him?
Oh yeah. Some wrestling this morning. Nick loved to roughhouse with his dad; I missed hearing his uncontrollable belly laughs as Mark tickled him.
We’re waiting in line to meet Pluto.
He’s my FAV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mark told me he’d gone to have the doctor check out some moles we’d been worried about; everything was okay, and he was just waiting on some blood work. Since his father’s arrest, Mark had abandoned his gluten-free diet, and I was worried about his celiac disease. I’d been nagging him for months to have his liver enzyme levels checked and was glad he’d finally gone in. Mark had always taken good care of himself, and with two young children now, I wanted him to make that a pri
ority again, to acknowledge to himself that he was worth it.
My cold is awful, I complained around three thirty. Had to come back to room to rest. My mom had taken Audrey to the hotel pool. We were planning on an early dinner at the California Grill. We were flying home the next afternoon. Mark messaged back his own plans for the evening: Petal was going to stay late and watch Nick while Mark went to our friend Trevor’s holiday party. Friends were starting to RSVP for our Christmas Eve party, too, he reported.
Rest up for your nite. I miss u guys.
We kiss you too, I responded, quickly sending a correction. I meant to say miss.
Kiss is OK. Better than diss . . . I’m looking forward to getting our tree. Should be fun.
Just after six thirty, Mark forwarded a Wall Street Journal article that apparently ran online before it was to appear in the paper the following morning. MADOFF’S KIN EYED AS PROBE GRINDS ON, the headline read. “Federal prosecutors are ratcheting up pressure on one of Bernard L. Madoff’s former ‘back office’ employees to cooperate with their investigation as they have continued in recent months to scrutinize his brother and sons, according to people familiar with the situation,” the story began. The piece focused on Annette Bongiorno, who had been arrested a month earlier along with Jodi Crupi. The article made no specific allegations against Mark, Andy, or their uncle Peter, and included a statement from Mark’s lawyer reiterating that Bernie’s sons had no prior knowledge of their father’s crimes, had turned him in as soon as he confessed, and continued to cooperate fully with authorities.
Mark was furious. What the hell happened here? We did not know about this? he e-mailed my stepfather.
Marty quickly dissected the piece and e-mailed his opinion. A nothing new story with a manufactured bullshit headline. There is not a shred of news here. Nada. Pay it no mind, plse.
Unappeased, Mark forwarded it to me. This is an awful article. No idea that it was coming out. I’m beyond devastated . . .
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