by Nicole Mello
“That can’t be right, Mom,” I said to her one day. I remember... she sat down at the kitchen table, and motioned for me to sit. I couldn’t have been more than eight or nine then. I couldn’t have understood. “You can’t die of a broken heart. It’s not a real medical thing.”
“Victor, love can be a very powerful force,” she told me. She took my hand in hers. “If anything ever happened to you, my heart would break. It would hurt me.”
“But you wouldn’t die,” I argued. She squeezed my hand.
“But I might wish I would,” she replied. I didn’t understand then. I understand now.
I’m sorry. Anyways. My grandfather died around the age of forty-two. My mother was devastated. She was twenty years old, and her own mother — my grandmother — had been dead for five years. Her father had become her whole world, apart from my father, and she was lost without him. Alphonse cared for her when she could not care for herself. He had seen how Caroline had cared for her father, and he followed her example, bringing her back to herself in a way that Caroline’s father had refused to do after his wife’s death. Alphonse was there for her every step of the way. My parents married right after my mother turned twenty-two.
My father was very well-off. He was well-respected and chose to run for office. You may remember the name Alphonse Frankenstein. He was the Borough President of Brooklyn for some time in the 1960s and 1970s. All of Brooklyn loved him, my mother said; all of Brooklyn loved my father, and every mayor who passed through while he was the Brooklyn Borough President sought his counsel, and every other Borough President respected him. My father, though he had mixed opinions on the man, often told us children about the time he shook hands and spoke with President Richard Nixon.
My father smiled all the time. It’s one of the things I remember most fondly about him. He was so happy, so loving. When he met my mother, he dedicated his life to her. My mother once said she believed herself to be the only reason my father didn’t become mayor, or governor, or president.
As I said, my parents married after my mother turned twenty-two, in 1979. My mother became Caroline Beaufort Frankenstein, keeping her last name as her middle name to honor her father. My father finished his run as Borough President and did not seek reelection, much to the disappointment of- well, everyone, if you believed the stories he and my mother told. They traveled for some time after that. My mother wanted to escape Brooklyn, where she had felt trapped for so long; my father was willing to follow her to the ends of the earth, if it made her happy. It did.
They traveled all over the world; they spent four months in Vietnam, which was where my mother learned Vietnamese. She was very quick, my mother. She was also very immersive, very passionate. Once she set her mind to something, she would achieve it, no matter what. I believe it was left over from not being able to save her father. But she was filled with zeal, with drive. I told you earlier that Caroline once told me that I shared Linh’s spirit and drive. I don’t believe that; I believe I shared Caroline’s. Still, I wish I didn’t. I wish I was lazy, apathetic, and uninspired. Maybe, then, we would have been spared.
My parents were in Minsk when they learned they were going to have a child. My father was ecstatic; he had always had positive relationships with his parents — my paternal grandparents, Mary and Gordon, who I remember fondly — and he had always wanted a family of his own. My mother was conflicted; she was a born nurturer, but her feelings about her own parents were so gnarled at that point in her life that she didn’t know what to make of it, and she was worried. She had no reason to worry, though. My father told me that, when — well, when their child was born, they named them Ernest, but this name was later changed. I will call them Ernest for your benefit until I get to the part of the story where that changes. Anyways, my father told me that, when Ernest was born, my mother looked at that child like they were everything she had ever needed.
“Love at first sight exists,” my father would say. “You just need to see how your mother looked at baby Ernest to know that love at first sight exists.”
I didn’t believe him, like I didn’t believe my mother when she said her father died of a broken heart. Like I said, I was very literal. I’m still not sure that love at first sight exists, but I’m certainly more receptive to the belief than I was when I was a boy.
My mother and my father loved Ernest like they loved nothing else. They still traveled with their infant child, who began to grow up in their travels. When it came time for Ernest to begin their schooling, Caroline and Alphonse Frankenstein returned to New York, and Ernest began school. My father returned to his position as Borough President, a position which he maintained until… Well, until much later. Ernest was an only child for some time. My parents wanted to have more children, but were struggling to do so.
In the meantime, my mother worked for charity after charity, volunteering almost all of her free time to churches, to women’s shelters, and, thankfully, to soup kitchens. You see, she grew up impoverished, as well; she had the love of her parents, and a small home, but not much else. Her past had instilled in her the sense that she had to give back, once she was older and better off, which she was with my father. She loved to give back. She loved to help people. She was the kindest woman you’d ever meet, my mother. An incredible woman.
It was during this time, while she was working for charities, helping the impoverished, with her loving husband and her one child, that she met Linh and myself. Caroline spoke the Vietnamese that she had picked up on her travels, and I’m so grateful that she could. One day, as I said, Linh left. One month later, Caroline realized Linh was never coming back for me. To this day, I don’t know for sure if Linh ran away, if she died, if she was taken, though to where I never imagined. I suppose I’ll never know, now. I miss her, in the most vague sense of the word. She was my birth mother. Caroline became my true mother.
Alphonse did not need to be convinced to take me in. He warmed to me rather quickly once Caroline started bringing me around to her home. He had dark skin, like her, but he had no hair; he did, however, have a bright smile, which he turned on me whenever he got a chance. Ernest took a bit of convincing, but they, too, quickly came around to the idea of having a brother. The three of them grew to love me, and I to love them. They became my family. Caroline and Alphonse officially adopted me in the November before my fifth birthday. They changed my last name from Trần to Frankenstein, which I was delighted to allow. They asked if I would like to keep my Vietnamese name, but, looking to Ernest, I thought I wanted a name like theirs. They were willing to grant me this, and helped me name myself; they gave me the middle name Perseus, to honor Caroline’s father, and Victor, a more Western adaptation of my birth name. I wanted to be a part of their family rather than a part of Linh’s, a broken connection to a person who never seemed to want me very much. I was never able to thank them enough for the kindness they showed me in taking them into their family.
When they adopted me, I was able to officially move from the streets of the city into an apartment in Brooklyn. This apartment would be my home for many years, until I left to attend college. I loved the place. Ernest and I each had our own rooms there until I turned seven, and our parents had their own room, as well. My room was sparsely decorated at first; slowly, I accumulated actual belongings. I put my drawings on the walls, Ernest gave me posters and pictures to hang. My pride and joy was a picture of my new family, blown up and placed in a simple frame, hanging on the wall across from my bed. It reminded me that I had a home. I made sure I could always see it. It was right above my desk when I did homework later in life, near my armchair when I would read, near my toy chest when I would play. I had a beautiful home.
There was a study in the apartment, as well. My father offered to give that up, later, when more bedrooms were needed, but Ernest and I offered to share a room rather than sacrifice the study. His study was the location of many fond memories; my father would read to us in there, would help us with our schoolwork there. His worn a
rmchair in the corner was the setting of many stories told, of confessions made. His desk had pen lines and crayon drawings he couldn’t bring himself to scrub off. We loved that study, worn and old and chilly as it was. My father made it bright and warm.
We also had a homey kitchen, which was the pride and joy of the place for my parents, who both loved to cook and bake. It was a shining room, filled with up-to-date appliances that glistened under the overhead lights. I loved to stand at the counter and steal whatever ingredients I could from dinner and eat them in the corner of our living room. My parents, they had dinner parties all the time, at which Ernest and I were expected to be well-dressed and presentable. Luckily, other couples attending would bring their own uncomfortable children, and we would all play games under the dining room table. That dining room was small, but it was homey, too, and comfortable.
We had a den, as well, where we would watch movies or sit quietly if we wanted a little bit of alone time. My favorite place was probably our living room, though. We were a very close family; where other families might split up when at home, go to their rooms or do work or listen to music and just ignore their parents and siblings, we spent a great deal of time together in that living room.
When we spent time together there, I would be reading almost constantly, pressed into the corner of our overstuffed sofa. Ernest would usually be sprawled on the hardwood floor, working on some project or another — they were very passionate, and dedicated their time to cause after cause, just like our mother. My father would work on whatever assignment he had at the time — he was, of course, the returning Borough President of Brooklyn by the time of my adoption. He was always busy, but he made time for us. My mother would knit, or write, or read, or do all manner of things, as true mothers do.
I was happy there.
Chapter Two
I always craved nature. This was, perhaps, leftover from my infant love of Biên Hòa and the trees that seemed to fill the city, but I always felt happiest out in nature, which was certainly a contrast to my general comfort in my family’s apartment. As a boy, I constantly wanted to be outside; the window to my bedroom was always open, and if my father or mother had had to tell me one more time to come in off the fire escape, I’m almost certain their heads would’ve popped off. Every Saturday, we participated in an activity as a family, and we got to take turns deciding where we would go. Every time it was my turn, I would choose a zoo, a park, or some place in the countryside — a small town, or something of the sort. We even took weekend drives up to the mountains every so often, and I remember those times very, very fondly.
I was something of an introvert for most of my life. It began in infancy, I’d imagine. Spending time with essentially nobody but my birth mother for the first four years of my life had led to an inclination to keep the amount of people around me small, and, as a result, I was more comfortable alone or with very few people. I watched movies frequently, and I read books even more often. I found solace in the written word. When I was not able to go to nature — which was often, because, despite our occasional weekend trips, we did live in the city — I made nature come to me. I loved my books.
I was also very close with my older sibling, Ernest. They were six years my senior, but we were the only children of the family for some time, and we grew very close. Ernest recognized early on my inclination towards science, and they would let me borrow their science texts to read. They lent me all their schoolbooks as they used them, which led to my being more advanced than other students in my class. Ultimately, though, I was much happier for it.
They would also take me to the library, and they showed me how to check out books, and we would spend… so much time together there. Almost every single day, after school, we would hop on our bikes and take off to the library, and we would take the two biggest armchairs by the old fireplace they had and read for hours. I didn’t read only textbooks, though. Don’t think that I was a stuffy old professor from birth. I loved fiction, and poetry was something I really enjoyed. We read all sorts of books; Lord Byron, I liked, and Prometheus was a particular favorite of mine, and I really liked John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The books themselves didn’t always matter, though. I truly just loved reading anything, anything at all.
That was how it was, with my parents, myself, and Ernest, until I was seven. My mother’s love and eagerness to help extended beyond helping me, and it was when I was seven and Ernest was thirteen that my mother adopted another child. Her name was Elizabeth. She was six years old, and she insisted on keeping her last name, and so she remained Elizabeth Lavenza. She did, however, allow my parents to give her a middle name, which she did not have previously, and she was given the middle name Mary, after my father’s mother.
Elizabeth — who insisted that Ernest and I call her Eliza — was not like any other person I had ever met before. I loved her dearly from her first week there. My mother told me she was bringing a new friend home, and so I adjusted to Eliza as a friend, then as a best friend. It only occurred to me later that she was like Ernest; she was my sister, my family. I would never be without Eliza, I was sure of it.
She was beautiful. Eliza’s skin was somewhat lighter than that of my parents and my brother, who were very dark; however, in appearance, I always thought she was more similar to them than she was to me. She was from India, and had had a similar life to my own. Her father, she told us, was very rich and well-known (though, for all we knew at the time, this was as fanciful and made-up as most of the books our father read to us), but her mother was not, and both of them left her to be raised by a friend of her mother’s. This friend, her husband, her children, and Eliza all traveled to America, but, much like Linh, found it was difficult to sustain children here. The family came to Mont Blanc on occasion; when Eliza found herself alone, she returned to Mont Blanc, remembering the kindness of the staff. In particular, she remembered my mother.
My mother had never been one to turn away a child, and she had taken a liking to Eliza as she had to me. When Eliza came directly to her, there was no way for my mother to say no. She discussed it with my father, who, without hesitation, offered up his study as a bedroom for the little girl. Remember what I told you earlier about the study? This was when Ernest and I, so unwilling to lose that part of our childhood, offered to stay in a room together. My mother was so touched by us, I remember. She was so proud. I think that we were more proud of her than she was of us, though.
I moved into Ernest’s room, because it was bigger, so we would be better able to fit, and my mother made my old room perfect for a young girl. Eliza moved in within a week, and my parents adopted her as their own child. It was in 1994 that I gained a younger sister in Eliza. She was beautiful, and kind; she was everything to me. I believe my mother briefly entertained the notion of us falling in love, or something of the sort, but it became clear how much we loved each other as siblings, and she dropped the idea.
Even in childhood, Eliza was ridiculously headstrong. She was always incredibly determined, just like my mother. She was also creative, moreso than I ever was. She would come up with story after story for us to act out, and game after game for us to play. My childhood, up until that point, was very like a sheltered adulthood; my new sister allowed me to play, to explore, to experience childhood through a child’s eyes, and I thank her for that.
Eliza also opened me up somewhat to other children. I had previously been content with just Ernest and my parents, but Eliza showed me that other children could be just as interesting, only in a different way. I spent some time observing my fellow schoolchildren, and found one of them to be leagues above the rest. This child was Henry Clerval.
Henry Clerval was like none other. He was always comfortable in his own skin; from a young age, he wore his red hair long, and he ignored what other children would say about him. He was covered in freckles, I remember, head to toe; he was very intriguing to look at, and always so kind-hearted. He was soft-spoken, but he was vicious when other children pushed him to it. Chi
ldren could be cruel; nobody understood that better than Henry. He fought back, though. And he never faltered, which I admired. I approached him with the intent of becoming his friend. I spent time with him after school on the playground, on playdates that I asked my mother to help me arrange. Henry took an interest to me like I did to him, though I could never tell you why, and soon I was spending almost all of my time with him and Eliza.
Eliza opened me up to other children, but Henry effectively closed that door by being so singularly incredible. He ruined all of the other children for me; none of them could compare. None of them were as fun, as interesting, as kind. None of them were Henry. Eliza befriended Henry, as well, and it turned out that he lived in the same apartment building as we did, so we began to spend a great deal of time together. As incredible as Eliza was, Henry went beyond this, for me. He was very different from Elizabeth in my mind. I only realized later that I was feeling two very different feelings which I had not yet even begun to understand. Henry was not overly fond of his own family, for reasons we did not understand as children, and which I will not tell you, because it is irrelevant to my own story and I once promised Henry I would never speak of it. I still want to honor that promise. However, because he did not want to spend time at his own home, he spent almost all of his time at ours.
I passed my childhood in this way, with Ernest as my role model, my parents as my heroes, and Eliza and Henry as my constant companions. My mother and father were caring individuals, but they were also frequently busy, which we all understood. Eliza had a very caring, maternal attitude from her first day, and she would often take it upon herself to help Ernest make lunch, or to clean our scraped knees, when my mother was not there.
I have tried to assert it several times without being so explicit, but I want it to be clear, so I’ll speak plainly. I had great parents. Caroline and Alphonse loved us dearly. Alphonse was very busy, of course, with his position in politics, but he always found time for us. We read books together, we traveled together on the weekends. My mother was similar; she was immersed in her charity work, but she always had time for us.
