The First Day of the Rest of My Life

by Cathy Lamb

  She became pale, fatigued, wretchedly sick, her head aching so badly from that thriving tumor she couldn’t move.

  She went to the doctors, she went to the hospital.

  There was nothing they could do.

  The tumor was eating her.

  The next Saturday Momma gathered up her energy and the five of us took the boat out. We sailed for hours, and we sat, cuddled up to our momma as she tipped her head back to the sun that shone on all of us like a warm blessing. We ate shrimp and crab sandwiches and lemon meringue pie.

  My momma weakened further as the weeks wore on, the pain in her head, constant and excruciating, and Annie and I cried on her many times, soaking her pink shirts, pink dresses.

  “Girls, remember that we’re a family,” she told us, cupping both our faces with her soft hands, her nails painted pink. “Your dad, me, you two, Grandma and Granddad, your dad’s parents. Take that love, take the love that we’ve always given to you, and hold it in your hearts, never let it go, believe in it, bask in it, build a future on it. Love transcends everything, even death. That means our love is always around you.”

  “But we’ll miss you, Momma,” I said, broken, a child who had lost so much and was about to lose more.

  “I’ll miss you, too.” Her eyes flooded. She didn’t hide the tears.

  To this day, I am glad that my momma didn’t lie to us, didn’t deny the truth of her upcoming death. She didn’t dwell on it, didn’t bring it up much, but when she did, she was honest, she was frank, and she offered up her wisdom and advice for the rest of our lives: “Honey, you must go to college . . . you must not smoke or drink . . . do not have sex before you are married, earn that white wedding dress . . . you must choose a man who believes you are the sun, the moon, and the earth and will treat you every day as the precious woman you are . . . don’t use too much hair spray, it’ll give you helmet head . . . unless your house is on fire, there is no excuse not to wear lipstick . . . show compassion to others and don’t you dare judge anyone harshly or, you mark my words, God will bring you down a notch or two ... don’t forget you’re an O’Shea and a Pink Girl . . . high heels are a must, a must, because a woman must feel powerful . . . don’t wear too much makeup or you’ll look like a streetwalker . . . keep your breasts covered unless you are with your husband in the bedroom and then you may prance around in nothing, or cover yourself with only a red boa and flick it at him . . . don’t ever forget that your dad and I love you more than anything and we will always be with you.”

  “What’s going to happen after you die?” Annie asked one night, finally speaking a little again, her body quaking in her blue owl pajamas.

  “What’s going to happen?” our momma said, a bit drugged out from the prescriptions that didn’t do enough. “Why Big Luke, your dad, he’s going to come down and get me. He’s going to open his arms and I’m going to float into his, and we’re going to fly over the sea because we all love the sea, all the O’Sheas love the sea, and we’ll float over you, because we love you two so much, and we’ll be together again, Dad and I, up in heaven looking out for you girls.”

  “Can he take us?” I asked, sobbing, my hands kneading my own blue owl pajamas.

  “No, Pink Girl, he can’t.” Her voice was down to a whisper, her strength going, that fire-whipping pain radiating to every pore in her body. “We can’t. We won’t. You two girls have your whole lives. Decades ahead of you.” She stopped and put a hand to her head. The pain was killing her. “But when you are very, very old, and it’s your time, Dad and I will come and get you, with our arms out, and you’ll float to us and we’ll fly over the ocean because we all love the sea and we’ll head up to heaven together in the clouds.”

  “I want to go now,” Annie said. “With you. I want to go.”

  She kissed us on our foreheads and pulled us close, all three heads together, only one head being killed by an alien tumor. “I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry.”

  We fell asleep in her arms, the three of us, Annie and I in matching blue owl pajamas, abject fear and grief spiraling through our dreams.

  The next night, very late, our momma took our boat out.

  By herself.

  I woke up in her bed, Annie asleep beside me, and I knew our momma was gone.

  I heard Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons in my head as I tumbled out her French doors to the deck. Way off in the distance I saw our boat. I saw it under the white light of the moon, the sea soft and calm, barely a ripple, and I knew what our momma had done.

  “No!” I screamed. “No!”

  My screams woke up Annie, who started screaming, too, and she leaped up and hid under the bed until she realized we weren’t at the shack amidst a sickening crime, we were at our house by the sea. The screams woke up Grandma and Granddad, who pounded into our momma’s bedroom. I pointed to our boat, way out in the ocean, under the light of the moon, on that soft and calm sea, and Granddad took off running.

  He tried, he tried so hard to reach her. He took Steve’s parents’ boat onto the water. Another neighbor heard our cries and took his boat out, too, speeding over the waves, but they were too late. Too late. Too late.

  Too late.

  It was what my momma wanted. She dropped herself into the sea. She ended her life, and the debilitating pain in her head, when and where she wanted to. She didn’t want to suffer but, much more than that, she didn’t want us to suffer further watching her. I knew our dad would come down and get her. He would hold out his arms and she would float to him and they would fly over the sea, because they loved the sea, all O’Sheas love the sea, and they would fly over us.

  Out on the deck, still watching our boat, and way off in the distance, seeing Granddad and another neighbor racing out, I felt it. I felt a hug, I felt them, my momma and my dad around me. Annie felt them, too, because she tilted her face up and kissed the breeze, twice. I put my arms up and I felt my momma’s kiss, my dad’s whiskers. We had our last moments, our last hug, our last touch.

  I felt them fade away, and Annie and I held hands, our grandma hysterical beside us, on her knees, keening, wailing in French.

  I put my hand out, to catch my parents, but all I felt was the breeze, light, cool, swirling. I closed my eyes and saw my dad standing next to my momma, his arm around her waist. They were not smiling—in fact I could see tears on their cheeks—but I felt their love. I felt their strength. My momma was wearing a pink dress and pink heels, my dad was wearing his jeans and the painted cardboard whale around his neck. His nails were polished.

  “Come back,” Annie yelled, through Grandma’s racking sobs. “Come back! Come back, Momma! Please come back! Momma, come back! Please! I love you, Momma, don’t leave me. Don’t leave me again, Daddy! Don’t leave me! Please!”

  I put my arms around her, and in my head the violins shut down, bows off strings, and I heard this, “We love you, sweet daughters, our Girls in Pink.”

  Steve’s whole family tried to help us. All our friends tried to help us. Meals, flowers, gifts, offers of their cottages to go to during summer, ski chalets we could borrow, anything. Let us help you, they said. We want to help. We’re sorry. We’re so sorry about your momma!

  But grief is a walk alone. Others can be there, and listen. But you will walk alone down your own path, at your own pace, with your sheared-off pain, your raw wounds, your denial, anger, and bitter loss. You’ll come to your own peace, hopefully, but it will be on your own, in your own time.

  Steve cried with me. Every time I cried, he cried.

  He used all his allowance money and with his momma, a gentle woman, he went shopping and chose material for pink dresses for Annie and me and a pattern for his momma to follow. His mother sewed them up. They were vogue and straight lined, not fussy.

  She must have been up all night for days because Annie and I wore the dresses at our momma’s funeral. Everyone wore pink. All the ladies in their pink dresses and skirts, even the men had on pink ties, pink shirts. The wreath of flowers on her coffin was
pink, a pink piece of satin underneath that, pink flowers packing the altar. Women talked about how much they loved my momma, how she’d changed their hair and changed their lives, how Momma’s advice made them stand up and stick up for themselves. They talked about Marie Elise’s French Beauty Parlor and the friendship and kindness they’d found.

  Two weeks later Grandma and Granddad and a whole host of people helped us pack up our house. I’m not sure where a lot of the stuff went. My guess is that my grandparents gave much of the furniture away to people in need. Carman, Trudy Jo, and Shell Dee helped Annie and me gather two huge boxes each of our momma and dad’s special things to keep, like china and teacups, photographs, gifts, pink outfits and pink heels, Momma’s violin, the yellow ribbons, her jewelry, a tackle box, a few of his ties, and a couple of fishing poles. When we arrived in Oregon, those boxes went in the attic at The Lavender Farm.

  Carman gave Annie and me tapes of Momma’s favorite songs. Six tapes each.

  Trudy Jo gave us a set of Shakespeare books.

  Shell Dee gave us models of the human body and framed pictures of our momma with her arms around us at Marie Elise’s French Beauty Parlor.

  On a day when the clouds looked hysterical, ripping across the landscape, we climbed into the back of our grandparents’ rented car and headed out of town. We took Bob the Cat with us in a carrier. She was still limping.

  “Why is everyone outside on the street?” I asked my grandparents as we rounded the corner into town. I was wearing the dress Steve’s mother sewed for me, my violin with the butterfly stain beside me on the seat.

  My granddad stopped the car and stared at all the people lining the road, both sides. Grandma reached for his hand, and gasped.

  I saw my teachers from school, our neighbors, the priests and ministers, all of our friends, and Steve. There was Steve, my snake-finding friend, with his parents, standing tall.

  “Is there a parade?” I asked. I hadn’t heard of any parade.

  My granddad cleared his throat. My grandma grabbed a lace hanky and dabbed at her eyes.

  “There’s my violin teacher,” I said. “And Mrs. Cooks, the librarian. And Sheriff Ellery. There’s Shoney and his mom and Maggie Gee and her grandmother and Shell Dee, Trudy Jo, Carman . . . and all their kids . . . what’s going on?”

  My grandma’s voice cracked. “They’re here for you. For you and Annie.”

  “What? Why are they here for me?” I glanced at Annie. She was confused, too, but only mildly. She’d retreated pretty far back into her head again.

  “They’re here,” Granddad started, then wiped a hand over his face. “They’re here, my darling granddaughters, to say good-bye to you.”

  “Good-bye?” I said.

  “Yes, honey,” Grandma said. “They’re here to say good-bye.”

  We drove through town slowly, windows down. Everyone waved. No one was happy. I saw people with handkerchiefs wiping their cheeks. They had signs that read, “We love you, Madeline and Annie” and “We’ll miss you, Madeline and Annie.”

  I stared right at Steve. He stared back, then ran to our car and handed me heart-shaped rocks, his face miserable.

  I watched him and all our friends grow smaller and smaller until I couldn’t see them anymore and that was it and good-bye.

  Good-bye.

  We drove past the ocean. I thought of the storm that was furious that night, how it drowned my dad and sunk him. I thought of our boat, how Momma had dropped herself into the waves. Two people, gobbled up by that ocean. “I don’t want to see the ocean again,” I said. “Never.”

  Beside me, Annie shook her head.

  Good-bye, everyone.

  Good-bye, Dad.

  Good-bye, Momma.

  Good-bye, Steve.

  I love you.

  Good-bye.

  29

  As I drove to The Lavender Farm that night after seeing a crushing load of clients, the lights of the city and the suburbs fading and giving way to the orchards, farms, and barns of the country, I thought about my and Annie’s conversation with Granddad on the deck.

  “What do you mean, we’re not the real Laurents?” I asked.

  He stared straight out into the darkness, an owl soaring from one tree to another, a dark moving shadow. “We had to get out of France or die. In my quest to save my family, I did something terrible. This reporter, Marlene, I am sure she knows what I did. She looked up the records at Drancy, at Auschwitz, on a whim, on a gut-level hunch, by chance, I don’t know. But now she has it.”

  “Has what? What did you do?” Annie asked, pushing her hair behind her ear, not a curl showing, like me.

  “I got us papers. All five of us. Your mother, Grandma and I, your grandma Madeline, and Ismael. I had tried for weeks to get us papers, to get us out secretly, in trunks or trucks, through different channels, and I hit a dead end. Try, that’s all Jews could do then, try. Try in the face of hopelessness and a marauding, murdering band of German thugs and a traitorous puppet government that turned their backs.”

  “How did you get the papers?”

  “Were they forged?” I asked.

  “Yes, they were forged. A few people were trying to help Jews get out before they were rounded up like cattle and gassed. Gassed. Human to human, one human to another: Gassed.” He shook his head, the shock of that atrocity never going away.

  “How did you get them?” Annie asked. “How did you get the papers?”

  “How?” He looked at Annie and me, in turn, those old eyes a morass of raw pain. “I stole them.”

  “You stole them? From—” I stopped.

  “From who?” Annie asked.

  Please, no.

  “From a man who did not deserve what I did,” he said.

  Please, no. He didn’t.

  “From a family who did not deserve their fate.”

  He did. He had.

  Understanding dawned in Annie’s eyes.

  I could hardly believe it. My granddad had never stolen anything in his life. Never. He gave millions of dollars away a year. He was kind and respectful to everyone, his generosity was established . . . he couldn’t have. He couldn’t have. He wouldn’t have . . . and yet, and yet.

  He had.

  He had stolen the papers for his family. For himself and his wife, Grandma Madeline, their two sweet children, our momma and her brother, for his wife’s sister, a teenager, our Grandma Emmanuelle . . .

  “I stole them from the Laurents,” he said, his voice ragged. “The real Laurents. His family had been in France for hundreds of years. He had two brothers, Meyer and Sagi. They were good men. I knew them. Her family was from Holland. She was one of eight children. They had three children. Those Laurents went to Drancy first, then Auschwitz.”

  His eyes blackened with guilt and shame. “I stole from one family so my family could live.”

  I coughed, feeling like I was being strangled with shock.

  “We almost missed the train that day. I had to go by their house, after I knew”—his voice broke—“after I knew that Ismael and Madeline would not need their papers, because they were dead, dead, I put the papers under the Laurents’ door so two of them could get out, but it was too late. Too late. The Nazis had already been there.”

  “Granddad,” Annie said, putting an arm around his neck as he wept.

  “They died. They all died. I checked, from the safety of my farm and home in Oregon, from the safety of my fortune, from the safety of my business and the safety of my new American citizenship, I checked. I wanted to repay them, I wanted to give them all of my money, but they didn’t make it. I killed them. It was me. I killed them.”

  “No, the Nazis killed them,” I said, aching for the Laurents, for their family. “They killed them.”

  “I did. It was my family for theirs. I chose mine. I love my family, family is my everything. But was my family more worthy of survival? No. We were not. We were not better, we were not more exalted. We were not more loved by God. We were equals. And I
chose my family over theirs. I chose. Like God chooses, only I did it for Him. I pushed the father to the ground, I hit him in the head. I knew he would have the papers on him and he did. The blood that poured from him. Poor man, poor man, and then I ran. I ran with his life, with the life of his wife and children. I ran and I left them there to die and I kept their name in my new country so we could start over, when they had no country at all, only barbed wire, barbaric living conditions, and ovens that never stopped burning.”

  I envisioned a fallen France. Invaded. Overthrown. Jews trying to get out, Jews rounded up, shoved in cattle cars . . . and Granddad’s family, my family, knowing they would die, the children would die . . . and he going to this man’s house and . . .

  “Granddad,” I said. So wrong, so wrong what he did . . . but...

  That darn owl hooted again, haunting.

  “You’ve lived with this forever—” Annie whispered.

  “Every day of my life, I have thought of the Laurents. I see them in my dreams. I see them everywhere. It is the strangest thing. I see them smiling at me. All five of them. The family I murdered smiles at me. It makes it worse. They were good people. Smart. Kind. The father welcomed me into his home that day. ‘Come in, come in, friend, quickly.’ He hugged me and I cracked his head open. I have never been able to get rid of my guilt. It has stalked me, every day it has knocked me down.” He was openly crying, a man who did not like to cry. “ ‘Come in,’ he said.” He groaned, fisted his hands together. “ ‘Come in, friend.’ ”

  We hugged him close. What to say? How to comfort? A vision of a man, a good man, being smashed by my granddad . . . all frantic, all needing to get out, to get out right away . . .

  “Granddad, that’s why . . . that’s why you donate so much money, isn’t it? All the time.”

  “Yes, to atone. To make up for my crime. Every time I give money away, I write it down in my leather journal.”

  I knew that leather journal. Old and weathered, pages bent, it was in his office, in a drawer.

  “I write down the name of the organization, I write, ‘For the Laurents. For the Laurents.’ Sometimes I list their names individually. Anton Laurent. Emmanuelle Laurent. Marie Elise Laurent. Johnna Laurent. Aaron Laurent. ‘Come in, come in, friend,’ he said.” He broke down again. “ ‘Come in, friend.’ ”