The End of Normal

by Stephanie Madoff Mack

  “Stop!”

  Mark slammed on the brakes and looked at me in alarm. “What?”

  I craned my neck around. “It’s Alex and Simon and Johan and François!” I cried. My favorite bizarro family from The Real Housewives of New York.

  Mark rolled his eyes at me. “Oh, God,” he said.

  I ignored his pointed lack of enthusiasm. “No, no, no! Turn around! I wanna be able to see them!” Mark refused to oblige. He never understood my appetite for the contrived drama. Since becoming part of the all-too-real Madoff drama, I had become hopelessly addicted to the faux hysteria of the Housewives. I tried to rope Mark into it, too, so we could share the sheer comic relief, but he preferred to escape into crime dramas instead. I wanted release; he wanted resolution.

  I went to the Montauk Bake Shoppe, a favorite ritual of ours that always drove Ruth crazy when Mark and I were staying at the Madoffs’ beach house. “Don’t you dare bring those back here!” she would scold us as we made our daily coffee run, knowing we’d come back loaded with pastries. Smiling at the memory, I went up to the counter and placed our usual order.

  “Four fried jelly croissants, three blueberry muffins, one raspberry scone, one blueberry scone, and two cookies, please.” Nick and Audrey loved the M&M eyes on the fish-shaped cookies. I took a large cup of coffee to go and made my way to the lighthouse. The point where the lighthouse sits is known as The End by locals, and as a kid, I always thought the Montauk lighthouse marked where the world ended. The magnetic moon was always trying to pull the earth away, I had learned in science classes, but we held fast. Water, however, couldn’t resist the tug, and the romance between moon and sea played out in the rise and fall of the tide. The End, I reasoned, must be the very spot where we clung to the world.

  I hiked down the steep path to the rocky shore beneath the lighthouse and sat on a large boulder, balancing my cup of coffee between the wet stones. The lighthouse horn bleated and I watched the sun glint off the fishing boats leaving Block Island Sound for the Atlantic. The morning felt fresh and rinsed clean, like sheets drying on a clothesline, and I wondered how Mark could willingly leave this world when there was so much beauty to take in. Did he really think he could not find happiness in anything again? I peered down at the crystal shallows and saw a tiny heart-shaped rock, like the ones Nick and Audrey had been hunting for in vain all weekend. I picked it up and put it in my pocket. I took out the last plastic packet of ashes and kissed it, then emptied it into the glittering sea.

  “Hope you have fun fishing,” I said. The bluefish, flounder, and striped bass were known to be bountiful in the rip where the bay meets the ocean. I climbed back up the cliff and hurried home with the box of treats, willing myself to be happy and present. Audrey and Nick deserved that much, I knew. I was just beginning to realize that I did, too.

  EPILOGUE

  Getting us out of the apartment where Mark killed himself was my biggest priority and my greatest frustration. I had gone back to my wistful online searches of real-estate listings, taking virtual tours of homes where I could imagine a swing set in the backyard and squirrels for Grouper to chase and barbecues with neighbors who had no clue that I was once a Madoff.

  I fell in love with a small slice of lakefront property in Armonk, one of the little towns in Westchester County that I had begged Mark to consider for our new beginning. I drove up to look at the lot. The street was leafy and quiet, just a short drive from the elementary school. My graduate school would be a shorter commute than I had now from SoHo, and there were a few hospitals in the area where I could apply for jobs once I finished my degree in the spring of 2013. We would enjoy a simple, normal life. The lot had only a foundation so far, but I liked the idea of building something from the ground up. Greenwich was just minutes away, which would make it easier for Kate and Daniel to remain in our lives. Maybe Charlie the crane could find us, too, if he had survived the cruel winter as we did.

  I discreetly listed the loft for rent, and was encouraged when one of the first couples to see it instantly wanted to sign a lease. They just as quickly opted out once they discovered whose apartment it was and what had happened here. The Madoff name alone had chased off potential renters the summer before, when we had tried to lease out the Nantucket house for the season. Knowing how unjustly damned Mark felt, I am left to wonder what it will take, beyond his very life, to convince the lynch mob that we shared Bernie’s name, not his morality.

  My ties to the shattered Madoff family are thin and fragile, like a thread pulled taut. Andy popped in and out of our lives like a cameo player who had been handed the wrong script. He would ask on short notice to see the kids, then come up to the apartment and sit at the dining room table or on the fireplace ledge just watching us, saying little or, sometimes, nothing. I felt as if we were under observation. He never brought his own two girls to see their young cousins, nor did he offer to take his niece and nephew out to play in a park, or maybe to see the dinosaurs at the museum. Nick’s second birthday went unmentioned by his uncle, but I received an e-mail from Andy the following day informing me that he was canceling our health insurance through the alternative-energy company he and Mark had cofounded. At the same time, I had to temper my own anger, because he was the trustee of Mark’s estate and I had to depend on him continuing to act in good faith. I felt bad that he had to deal with such a mess.

  Andy and I never knew quite what to make of each other; rage and sorrow were the only things we had in common anymore. I don’t know what he wants of me, but I do know that I am done trying to please any Madoffs. And so Mark’s brother and I dance around each other like two wary, wounded old boxers. When he leaves my apartment, he often contacts my stepfather or brother to criticize me and to express his supposed concern for me: I’ve lost too much weight, he will report, or I seem mentally unstable. The latter diagnosis at least gave Marty a good chuckle when he heard how it came about. I had threatened aloud to call Irving Picard’s office and leave a prank message claiming to be Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears. Marty, unlike Andy, immediately got the joke, and knew it was just a funny fantasy about how to goad the trustees into returning my lawyer’s calls.

  Andy was also obsessing over my plans to go public with my story. “You’ll hurt yourself, you’ll hurt your children, and you’ll hurt me,” he warned.

  “I’m doing this for my children,” I reiterated. “And for Mark. Stop harassing me.”

  He turned his campaign to my stepfather and my friends.

  “This will bankrupt her,” he told a friend of mine. “We have a PR agency that is trying to keep our name out of the press because people hate us.” Publicity, he argued, would only hurt the attempts to reach a settlement in the lawsuits.

  Andy’s logic didn’t seem to apply to himself. Catherine had appointed herself “family spokesman” as soon as Bernie was arrested, even though she had been introduced to all of us only several months before. In the aftermath of Bernie’s downfall, Catherine used the Madoff name as often as possible in promoting her disaster-preparedness business. Andy was often seen at her side, on TV and in magazines and newspapers.

  He tried a different strategy with my stepfather, asking Marty to meet him for a drink one afternoon. Andy told Marty he was worried that I was losing it. Marty thanked him for his concern and told him my grief was overwhelming, but I was learning to deal with it: I had a support system of family, friends, and a trusted therapist, and he didn’t need to worry about me or the kids. Andy then brought up my publishing plans and his fear of any publicity. Marty asked why he didn’t object to Catherine’s eagerness to be interviewed or quoted, or to use the Madoff name to get attention for her business.

  “Yeah,” he replied lamely, “we are cutting back on publicity that mentions me. Phasing me out PR-wise.”

  Throughout it all, I still took him at his word that he wanted to forge some kind of relationship with Nick and Audrey, and I l
et the odd visits continue. During one of them, as I was getting ready to leave for school, he badgered me about a specific watch of Mark’s that Daniel had asked me for shortly after his father’s death. “I feel so bad,” I had told Daniel, “but your dad had it engraved for Nicholas when he was born. But I’m happy to give you another one.” I hadn’t had the heart yet to sort through Mark’s belongings. When I recounted our conversation for Andy, he wanted proof that the watch was engraved with Nick’s name.

  “Can I see it?” he asked.

  Near tears, I brought it out and showed him my son’s name and birth date etched on the back.

  “I have every intention of giving Kate and Daniel some of their father’s belongings,” I said. I pulled another watch from Mark’s cherished collection and put it on the dining room table, then looked for something to send to Kate, settling on a wedding band Mark had bought from a silversmith at her summer camp.

  “I’m not ready to part with these yet, but here, you go ahead and take them,” I said. I grabbed my bag and rushed for the door before I broke down.

  “Susan, wait!” Andy called after me.

  I whipped around. “It’s Stephanie,” I said, and left.

  Several weeks afterward, Andy was halfway out the door at the end of one of his visits when he casually announced that Kate and Daniel wanted to see Nick and Audrey, but had insisted he be present because they felt uncomfortable around me, “because of the book.” I was stung. I had taken Kate out to lunch and shopping in the city for her sixteenth birthday just a month earlier, and we had had a great time. Troubled by Andy’s assertion, I sat down the next morning to write both kids an e-mail, asking if I had done something to upset them, and assuring them that they were loved and always welcome to visit. Daniel immediately sent back a warm reply, and the three of us made arrangements to get together in Greenwich on an upcoming weekend.

  When the day arrived, the kids showed up around lunchtime, texting me beforehand to ask if I wanted anything from their favorite chicken joint. Kate immediately plopped down to play with Nick and Audrey, who basked in her attention, and I was surprised when Daniel settled in to talk with me. Kate and I had always been close in a girly way, while Daniel, who is three years older, had regarded both Mark and me with typical teenaged disdain. The two of them stayed at the house for a few hours, and we chatted about their friends and their plans for the summer, never daring to plunge into the deeper waters of what we had all been through these past two and a half years. Daniel politely asked if he could have some of his father’s old fishing gear.

  “Of course,” I told him, biting my tongue when he came back downstairs later with the entire lot. I longed to reclaim at least one reel for Nicholas to have as a keepsake someday, but I didn’t know how to ask. And if Daniel found some measure of comfort in the collection of lovingly used rods and reels, I would never take even a fraction of that away from him.

  Kate wanted a few family photos and laid claim to some autographed baseball bats. Daniel then launched into a story about a luxurious yacht he had once been aboard, which had belonged to a friend of Papa Bernie. It was jarring to hear the old term of endearment for his felon grandfather. I was surprised, but shouldn’t have been. Ruth and Bernie had never been cut off from Kate and Daniel as decisively as our children now were. I half wondered if they would be going to North Carolina to visit Papa Bernie someday; Daniel was already old enough to make the choice for himself, and Kate wasn’t far behind. I never heard either of them express any hurt, anger, or shame about what their grandfather had done; in Greenwich, they were seen, rightfully, as innocent victims, and the attention appeared to be purely positive and supportive. Kate had no problem competing in national swim meets with the name Madoff up on the scoreboards for all to see; I admired her stoicism.

  The dynamic has shifted for the adults, as well. Ruth was the subject of a sympathetic profile in People magazine, which took note of the incognito life she was living down in Florida, driving a used car and volunteering to help the homeless. Even Andy had migrated back to his mother’s side. “I’ve seen my mom, and it’s actually been really nice,” he had told me one afternoon.

  “That’s nice,” I replied vaguely. Maybe that was what was behind the awkward visits; using Andy as a conduit to try to work her way back into my children’s lives would be a classic Ruth maneuver. I have to admire her tenacity even as I resent her for failing to instill that same scrappy determination in her oldest son.

  I do still think of Ruth often. I don’t regret my decision at all to honor Mark’s wishes, but I wonder if I will ever face her again. My heart softens and hardens.

  I learned through a newspaper story that Catherine and a friend of hers are publishing a book, apparently about “one of the most controversial figures of our time,” and I can only assume that Andy Madoff is attached to it somehow. Andy’s scurrying about to ensure my silence makes sense. His sudden new devotion to his brother’s younger children and his odd visits also make sense: We were being observed. I had been played by a Madoff again.

  Every Friday, I trek uptown with Audrey to see a child life specialist who’s been helping me navigate these new waters. We stop for a black-and-white cookie at the deli on the corner before going to see Sallie. “Keep Mark present,” was her first advice to me about helping Nick and Audrey. What breaks my heart heals theirs. Their nightstands each hold two or three photographs of their father, and I sometimes find them clutching one in a small hand as they sleep.

  I lost my own biological father suddenly, when he died of an aneurysm on the night of my high school graduation. I was eighteen. I started my summer job the next day. I had loved him, but my parents were divorced and my father and I had never forged a close bond. Still, I knew what it felt like to lose a parent unexpectedly, and I wanted to preserve Mark’s memory for our children in a healthy way.

  On Audrey’s first visit, Sallie had shown her how to trace her hand, then color each finger a different color and write a message for her father on each one. “I went to ballet class with Scarlett today,” she wants him to know. “Ella came over to play.” She is pleased that she can still tell her daddy whatever she wants, and she relays her news to him with drawings and Post-it notes stuck to our windows, so Mark can read them from the sky.

  Sallie also suggested we start a memory book to keep the pictures Nick and Audrey draw for their father, the things they say, and my own notes about what he was like. I bought a huge black leather album and had it embossed with the words DADDY’S MEMORY BOOK, and stockpile little notepads in bright, cheery colors for me to write down all of Mark’s favorite things: Daddy’s favorite candies were Chuckles, orange slices, Milk Duds, and orange circus peanuts. Daddy’s favorite restaurant was Blue Ribbon, because he loved their paella. Daddy’s favorite foods for Mommy to cook were lasagna, roast chicken, and fried breaded flounder. Daddy’s favorite movie was The Hangover. I pull up every detail I can remember and create list after list.

  I also include two letters on Snoopy stationery that Mark wrote from sleepaway camp in Pennsylvania when he was eleven years old. Dear Mom, he wrote in the first, Each Friday we have a social. I don’t know what to do. I don’t like camp because everybody talks about girls . . . And then a second, briefer missive: Dear Mom, I’m coming home with you on visiting day so bring the big car. Love, Mark. They crack me up, and I recognize in Nick already the same budding athleticism his father had. How Mark would have loved seeing himself in his own little boy. Whenever the kids say something cute or funny or tender about Mark, I run for a notepad and write it down to put in the black album. It feels like I’m keeping a baby book.

  “My daddy taught me how to play the yo-yo.”

  “You know, my daddy used to let me pee in the beach water.”

  “My dad is a really good driver.”

  “I miss the Towel Monster.”

  I try to become the Towel Monst
er, putting a towel on my own head at bath time, but I stop because it feels too sacred. The Towel Monster belonged to him; it should be just theirs. Trying to fill the void, I learn, only underscores its presence.

  Sallie recommended a suicide survivors’ support group for me, but I demurred. I still have scary flashbacks from a new-mother group I joined after Audrey was born. I thought I was going to make new friends and discuss sleep-training, but the half-dozen other mommies in the group had all known one another socially already, and their chumminess was hard to penetrate. I felt intimidated. They spent the hour bitching about their husbands and their renovations. I never opened my mouth. My husband was my best friend, and I liked my kitchen appliances and master-bath fixtures just fine, too. “I’m good,” I tell Sallie.

  And I am, more and more often. When an old friend from high school runs into me on the street and suggests we get together for drinks, I happily agree, then change my mind by the time I get home. Does he know what happened to me? And if not, do I want to tell him? I text him asking for a rain check. We reschedule, and I make another excuse, but by the third time I feel guilty and just go. I end up having a great time laughing and reminiscing, and Stephanie Madoff and her tragedy never come up. Friends from grad school invite me out, too, and I go through the same routine.

  Weekends are always the toughest for me, when I am the loneliest. Mark and I spent all our free time together; Saturday and Sunday were the highlights of my week. Now I dread them. But looking back doesn’t make me feel any better. Having fun is still an effort, but I’m more willing to make it than I was just a few months ago. I even go to a restaurant I love but have been avoiding because it brings back memories of a romantic date Mark and I had during a Saturday-night blizzard.