by Nyna Giles
A day later, Dr. Farley followed up with a letter to the Suffolk County Department of Correction to explain that “Nina will be out of school for an indefinite period of time.”
For now, at least, Dr. Farley and my mother had won the tug-of-war with my school.
Although it’s not in the school records, I am almost certain it was Dr. Farley who suggested I have colonic irrigation. Throughout my childhood, my mother was convinced I was constipated—not a day went by without her asking me repeatedly if I’d gone. If I said no, she’d give me a glass of orange juice, and then I would sit on the toilet in the powder room by the kitchen and wait. When my mother heard about colonic irrigation, she was convinced it was the cure I needed. I remember going into the city for the irrigation procedure two or three times. The nurses would make me lie down on a gurney, the cold hard metal beneath my back. I remember the container holding the oil at my side, with the terrifying long tube snaking out of one end and bubbles in the oil that rose to the surface, as if trying to escape. The nurse had to pin me down so that the awful hose could be inserted; she had no sympathy for the terrified little girl who screamed and writhed under her weight as she forced it inside of me. The oil pushing into me caused me terrible pain—thirty minutes of heart-racing agony. My only comfort was a hot water bottle on my stomach. If you read the medical literature on colonic irrigation, you’ll learn that no one reputable recommends the treatment for very young children. Not then, not now.
In the school records for that year, there’s an article from the Medical Tribune and Medical News that someone from the school had clipped and placed in my file. OVER-CONCERNED MOTHER HELD URGENT PEDIATRICS PROBLEM, read the headline. The article described a mother who “projects her own illness onto her child and takes him from physician to physician seeking one who will confirm her diagnosis.” This mother “falsely sees her child as ill or exaggerates his sickness.” Such mothers should be considered “psychiatric emergencies,” the article explained.
* * *
THAT SEPTEMBER, I somehow progressed to fourth grade, and the school year of 1969–70 started well enough. But by the new year, I had stopped going to school again, and my teacher, Mrs. Jensen, started coming to the house to tutor me. I took my lessons in the den, wearing my pajamas and lying down on the couch, so I wouldn’t overexert myself.
Mrs. Jensen had brown curly hair and a dark blue suit. She was a stern, older lady, but I didn’t mind. I looked forward to my sessions with her very much. My days were so long and uneventful, and I was eager to learn. Mrs. Jensen gave me a book on Greek mythology, and I became fascinated by the stories of the gods and goddesses.
One day, when the lesson was over, Mrs. Jensen asked me a question.
“Nina, don’t you want to come back to school?” she asked me quietly. “You seem fine to me. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you.”
“I can’t,” I told Mrs. Jensen, shaking my head. “I’m not well.”
“Why won’t you come back?” my teacher insisted. “You can tell your mother you want to come back to school.”
I started to cry. I wasn’t used to being questioned. I didn’t want to go back. I needed to stay home with my mother.
“I can’t,” I repeated through my tears.
My mother must have heard me crying, because she came into the room, her face furrowed with concern. Mrs. Jensen stood up and turned around to face my mother.
“Nina needs to be in school,” my teacher insisted. “There is nothing wrong with her.”
My mother protested. She told Mrs. Jensen about my doctor visits, about my health problems, about how hard it had been for me to keep up with my studies.
Mrs. Jensen repeated that I seemed fine and that I needed to be in school; she raised her voice, her finger jabbing the air.
My mother started to cry. I couldn’t bear to see her so upset.
“Don’t say that to my mommy!” I told Mrs. Jensen.
I ran to my mother, putting my body against hers.
“Leave my mommy alone!” I shouted at my teacher.
This was not like me. I was such a quiet child; I hardly ever raised my voice. But I was going to defend my mother no matter what.
Mrs. Jensen was taken aback. She looked at me and looked at my mother, and threw her hands up, as if she didn’t know what else to say.
“You’ll be hearing from the school,” my teacher informed us. Then she strode out of the house, slamming the door behind her.
We didn’t see Mrs. Jensen at the house again.
I was ten years old. I didn’t question my mother’s role in keeping me at home. I just wanted to protect her from my teacher, who seemed intent on upsetting us. It was only years later that I realized why Mrs. Jensen had shouted at my mother the way that she did. She was trying to save me.
* * *
NOT LONG AFTER the incident with Mrs. Jensen, my mother came into my room in the middle of the night to wake me.
“Nina, get up,” she whispered. “We’re leaving.”
Even in the darkness, I could see the pale oval of her face and her sweet, sad eyes darting with nerves.
I did as I was told.
My mother helped me to pack my sister Jill’s little olive-green floral suitcase. With me still in my pajamas, we crept out the door, leaving my father sleeping in his bed. My half sister, Patricia, had left her red-and-white convertible Mustang in our garage for the winter. My mother had the key. We slid into the seats of the Mustang. I held my breath as my mother turned the ignition, and pulled away, the sound of the car tires on the gravel drive so loud I was convinced we would wake Malcolm. But as I looked behind me, the house stayed safely dark.
My mother explained that we were going to Steubenville. To Ohio.
We drove through the night, my mother chain-smoking cigarettes with the window cracked, checking the rearview mirror obsessively; the headlamps of every passing car like searchlights tracking our escape. At some point, we pulled over so we could get gas and my mother could make a phone call. I remember wondering who she was calling. My father, to tell him we’d left? Or was she calling her mother in Ohio to tell her we were on our way? When my mother returned to the car, she didn’t explain.
She started the engine and we pulled away again, into the night. I knew I had met my Steubenville relatives—my grandmother, my mother’s stepfather, and my aunt and uncle—only once, when I was a baby. I had no memory of them. My mother talked to her own mother and her half sister Joyce Lee on the phone sometimes, but I had no image of them in my mind.
The next time we stopped it was outside a small country motel where we got a room and lay down together, sleeping until daylight woke us. In the sunlit morning, my mother seemed more at ease, and so I began to relax, too. We had breakfast at the motel restaurant. Then we got back in the car. The landscape shifted with our mood, until we were driving through lush green hillsides dappled with light and trees. My mother explained that this was Pennsylvania Dutch country. She pointed out the traditional “hex signs” on the sides of the barn buildings, colorful patterned discs with stars and concentric shapes inside them. The next time we stopped, it was to visit a big red barn store where my mother bought me a book about the hex signs. I remember being fascinated by the symbols, their histories and meanings. With my new book, it no longer felt like we were on the run; we were tourists, a mother and daughter together on an adventure.
Back in the car, my mother explained that it was only a few hours now until Steubenville. I remember wide-open highways with many lanes, tollbooths, driving through tunnels that cut through hillsides. Before long, we were crossing the Ohio River on a wide, low bridge, and ahead of us was Steubenville, the chimney stacks of the steel mills sending rain-colored smoke into the sky. On the other side of the bridge, we drove only a few more minutes before turning the corner onto Pennsylvania Avenue.
The house at number 1416 was painted yellow and white with steps cutting through a grassy slope leading to a small front por
ch. My grandmother Dorothy came to the door to greet us. She was round and smiling, with hair that was brown streaked with silver, eyes that crinkled, and glasses on her nose, like a grandmother in a fairy tale. She hugged my mother, and then I let her do the same to me, folding me into the soft warmth of her skirts. Grandma ushered us inside.
My mother and grandmother headed straight for the kitchen to begin preparing dinner, chatting happily. In the kitchen above the refrigerator was a picture of a young woman wearing a fur stole, with dark hair and cherry-red lips and a little black hat on her head. My mother explained this was a photograph of my grandmother when she was younger. I thought she looked like a movie star! It was clear where my mother got her good looks. Later on, I ventured upstairs, where I found a small room with a window overlooking the street. Like the other rooms in Grandma’s home, it was small and dark and decorated with heavy wooden furniture. Right away, I felt certain this must have been my mother’s bedroom when she was a girl. There was a little vanity with a mirror and a wooden chair, so I sat down and examined my reflection. When she was my age, would my mother have looked in this same mirror? I was fair and freckled like my father with light brown hair. I didn’t look at all like my mother and my grandmother, with their dark good looks; the only thing I had inherited from them was my high forehead. It felt special, important, that I could be here with her.
I went back downstairs, lured by the smell of brownies baking. I had always sensed that my mother didn’t like Steubenville—why else had we never visited?—and yet it didn’t seem so bad here.
Then Joe, my grandmother’s husband, came home. I knew this was my mother’s stepfather. He was a tall, stooped man, with a bald head and eyebrows that went up at angles, meeting in a V at the top of his nose. There were no hugs from my step-grandfather. Instead, Joe nodded his greetings to my mother and went straight to the dining table. My mother followed him silently, and I did the same. Joe sat down at the head of the table. He pulled out his napkin and thrust it under the collar of his shirt with a flourish. Then he picked up his knife in one hand and his fork in the other and held them in his fists, ends propped on the table, waiting to be served. Dorothy came in, dutifully putting a plate of food in front of him. Then Joe took his fork and began to eat, stabbing his food and thrusting it into his mouth. For the rest of the meal, no one said a word. My father never took his meals with us—he always carried his plate into the den so that he could eat on his own—but even so, Joe’s silence was shocking to me.
I don’t remember my step-grandfather showing any interest in me for the duration of the trip. Whenever he came into the house, it was as if the air shifted and soured, putting everyone on edge, my mother in particular. With Joe in the house, my grandmother’s personality changed, too. Usually so cheerful, she quietly submitted to his every demand. Perhaps in the long years of marriage she had learned that protesting wasn’t worth the trouble.
I don’t remember how long we stayed in Steubenville, maybe two weeks, three at the most. But then, as suddenly as we had left Long Island, we were packing our bags and getting in the car to leave. My grandmother stood on the porch as we pulled away, waving and holding back her tears. Then we drove past the long rows of houses. I was sad to leave Steubenville. Despite Joe’s presence, I had enjoyed my time at my grandmother’s house. In Steubenville, there were no phone calls from the school, no visits from my teacher. I wonder now why we had to leave. Perhaps my father persuaded my mother to come back. Maybe she couldn’t stand to be around her stepfather anymore.
Or maybe she had no choice.
Many years later, looking through the school records, I learned that in March 1970, right before our departure for Steubenville, the school nurse, Mrs. McNulty, had reported seeing my mother and me at the local A&P supermarket. Earlier that same day, my mother had called the school to say I was too sick for tutoring. If this was the case, why was I out at the supermarket? Mrs. McNulty wanted to know. Soon after, the principal filed a petition for neglect against my mother on behalf of the school.
“The mother of said child, although financially able to do so, has failed and neglected to provide said child with education,” the petition states.
Although my father is named in the petition, my mother is the person “legally responsible” for my well-being, as if my father couldn’t be expected to have any responsibility in the matter whatsoever.
My mother most likely had to leave Steubenville because she was due to appear in court.
* * *
SOON AFTER FILING the petition against my mother, the school mysteriously dropped the case. Nothing in the school records confirms what happened next. Years later, I contacted the Family Court of Suffolk County to see if they had any documents pertaining to my case. They referred me to Child Protective Services, who explained that the petition was never submitted to the court, and therefore they didn’t have any records on file.
My guess is that Dr. Farley finally convinced the school that I was legitimately sick, because it was around this same time that I was diagnosed with rheumatic fever.
In many ways, rheumatic fever was the perfect illness to explain away my ailments. Symptoms of the disease can be slight or even nonexistent, but left untreated, rheumatic fever can be dangerous and even fatal. In 1970, when I was diagnosed, the primary treatment was bed rest. Dr. Farley explained that I had to build up my strength slowly, as one attack might easily follow another, and the illness can linger, even after the symptoms have disappeared.
My mother now had a legitimate reason for me to stay at home on bed rest and to cancel my home tutoring appointments.
On my school report from June of that year, there is a string of handwritten question marks and then an arrow pointing to the words “absent most of year.” The records state that my fifth-grade teacher was Mr. Traverse, but I have no recollection of him whatsoever; I was in attendance for only five days the entire year.
Dr. Farley also prescribed penicillin for the rheumatic fever, which I took on and off for the next two years. I kept taking Congespirin for my repeated colds and infections. When I had sore throats, my mother gave me penicillin for strep. I remember she kept the pill bottles on the glass shelves behind her bathroom mirror, taking them out, then crushing the pills in applesauce for me—I hated to swallow them whole.
It was around this age that I remember going to the bathroom, wiping, and seeing blood on the toilet tissue. I remember screaming for my mother. I was hysterical. I was convinced this was the internal bleeding my mother was always talking about. Or maybe I had cancer. My mother came running, but when I showed her the blood, for once, she was calm and composed. She explained to me that I had just gotten my first period. I was going to have this once a month now. She showed me how to place the pad in my underwear to keep myself clean. I had been so isolated that I had no idea this was something I should expect to happen to me. I remember the relief. This was normal.
* * *
MY SISTERS LEFT home as soon as they could. Robin was the first to go. She was only sixteen, but she’d already been running away and asserting her independence from my parents for years. She had pretty much dropped out of school in tenth grade. In the years 1968 to 1969, her school records show she was present in school only seventeen days. Even though she showed up now and then, she had essentially lost interest, and my parents had given up on her. In the spring of 1971, she set out on her own. She briefly worked as a barmaid, a secretary, and a dime store clerk in Westbury at first, not far from our home. Not long after Robin left, Jill moved out, too, heading to junior college in Newport, Rhode Island.
That same spring, Sherman Fairchild passed away. Sherman left my father a considerable amount of money, as well as an education fund for my sisters and me. But life on Long Island would never be the same for my father. He had lost his best friend and his social life next door. He fell into a depression and now stayed home most of the time.
With both my sisters gone, I was alone with my parents in the Dr
eam House. I became the small sun around which my mother obsessively revolved.
This was the period when her behavior became more and more difficult to understand, even for an eleven-year-old child. One night, I remember, she came into my bedroom very late. In my room I had posters of cats and kittens, my favorite animals, tacked to the walls.
That night, I woke up to find my mother tearing down the cat posters from the walls.
I begged her to stop. “Why are you doing this?” I pleaded.
My mother was pulling at the pictures with her fingernails.
She told me that she could hear knocking in the walls; that she needed to make sure we were safe.
My treasured posters lay in tatters on the floor.
After she left, I cried myself back to sleep.
CHAPTER 11
Carolyn
Grace’s career as an actress had finally taken flight. In January of 1954, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Mogambo. Although she didn’t win, the nomination ensured that she was now officially famous. That April, she appeared on the cover of Life magazine with the headline HOLLYWOOD’S BRIGHTEST AND BUSIEST NEW STAR. She was securing roles in new films almost faster than she could make them. That same spring, she returned to Hollywood to begin shooting The Country Girl with Bing Crosby and William Holden. After that, she flew to France to film To Catch a Thief with Hitchcock and Cary Grant. When she returned to New York in the fall, in time for the release of Rear Window, she was determined to stay for a few months to catch her breath. She had made five films in a period of only eight short months.
There was no doubt that Grace’s growing fame created a tension between her and Carolyn. It wasn’t that Carolyn was jealous—she was thrilled at her friend’s success. It was just that there was a lack of equal footing between them that neither friend knew how to balance. They tried. One night in November of 1954, Grace invited Carolyn and Malcolm to join her at a gala premiere at the Capitol Theatre in New York. This would be a good opportunity not only for Carolyn and Grace to catch up but also for the Reybolds to spend time with Grace’s new love interest, the fashion designer Oleg Cassini. Cassini’s clientele included the most beautiful women in Hollywood—Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, and Audrey Hepburn—and that night Grace wore a pale pink satin gown of his design.
