Claire Voyant

by Saralee Rosenberg

  “Sure, she had a name,” Grams sighed. “Used to like that name, too. Penelope.”

  “Oh, yuck. Are you serious? Penelope? That’s an awful name.”

  “Maybe to match the awful person she was.”

  “You didn’t like her?”

  “What was to like? Such a cold fish…. She did something so terrible you can’t even imagine.”

  “Oh God. Please don’t tell me she hurt the baby.”

  “Worse than that.”

  “She killed the baby?” I reached for Grams’ hand. This was the last thing I expected to hear.

  “No, no. Nothing like that. Bite your tongue.”

  “So what did she do?”

  “Well, after the baby was born—”

  “Boy or girl?”

  “A sweet little girl. An angel. Not fussy. Except Penelope wanted nothing to do with her.”

  “Probably because she knew she was going to give her up for adoption.”

  “Turns out she couldn’t go through with that, either. On account of Gary. Once he held his daughter, he went crazy for her. All of a sudden he wants to get married. Be a family man…. But Miss Stinker says to us, he can keep her for a while and see how it goes. Like the baby’s a new Buick you take for a test drive.”

  “What a bitch…. But whatever. What did they name the baby?”

  “Well, that’s a whole ’nother story…oy…until they could finally agree…. But thank God they stopped fighting and picked one…Hannah.”

  “Oooh, now, that’s pretty. Biblical yet modern. Classy but warm…Hannah Moss. I like it.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “All of a sudden Penelope decides she wants Hannah to have her last name.”

  “Why?”

  “Who the hell knows? She always had a bug up her ass about this, that, or the other thing.”

  “Well, it was the seventies. Women’s lib and all…. So what was Penelope’s last name?”

  Grams stood. “You’ll never in a million years believe.”

  It startled me how small and demure she looked compared to the imposing figure she’d cut in her younger days. Eventually I met her eye to eye, then passed her completely, but when I was younger and would look up, she always seemed soldier tall, though never at ease.

  “Fabrikant,” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry?” Maybe I was the one who needed a hearing aid.

  “Penelope Fabrikant…that was her name.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I gasped. “That’s…I don’t know…really bizarre.”

  “Why God is still punishing us, I have no idea. He doesn’t think we suffered enough?”

  “Wait, wait, wait. That’s why you’re all so freaked out? Because you think she might have been related to Abe Fabrikant?”

  “There’s nothin’ to think about.”

  “Oh, please. That’s nuts. I mean, granted, it isn’t a common name. But honestly, what are the odds there’s a connection here?”

  “I’ll tell you the odds.” Grams collapsed in the chair and knotted the tissue around her thumb. “Sit down.”

  “I am sitting,” I said. “See? I’m right here next to you.” Yup. We’re getting you into this assisted living facility in the nick of time.

  “No, I mean sit on the floor.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause you’re too big for me now…for when you fall.”

  “I’m going to fall?”

  “I know how you don’t like nothin’ with a scary ending.”

  “Okay, you do realize I’m not a kid anymore, right? It’s not like that night we watched Psycho and I screamed so loud your crazy neighbor started banging on the door. What was her name? The one with that big birthmark in the middle of her cheek?”

  “Mrs. Alberti.”

  “Yeah. Good old Mrs. Alberti. Remember she said she thought there was a murder going on?”

  “That was fun-nee.” Grams slapped her knee. “Barges in with that head full of curlers, and the furry slippers with those dogs on her toes…. Like that would scare off a killer.”

  “I still can’t believe you let me stay up so late to watch Psycho. Of all movies, Grams. My God, how old was I? Eight? Nine?”

  “Six and a half.”

  “No way.”

  “Sure. I remember ’cause it was right after your mother had that bad accident in Waldbaum’s parking lot. Nobody told me at first. They knew what it would do to me. Brought back all the terrible memories of Gary’s crash…. Anyway, I was staying with you kids, but every night, I’d watch a little television. Sometimes a good picture would come on. Half the time I’d find you curled up next to me on the couch…you and me…we always got along good ’cause we knew the rest of the family was nuts.”

  “Just keep going with the story.” I squeezed her hand. “I promise I won’t scream.”

  “That’s what you always said,” she sighed. “So where was I?”

  My speciality. When someone yelled “Line,” I always knew where we were. “You’re at the part where Penelope just had the baby.”

  “Yeah. Yeah…so now we’re home with Hannah, and everybody is crazy about her. She started out this little nothing pishelach, but in a few weeks she’s got nice color, she’s eating…she didn’t like to sleep so much, but Gary, he was good. He could hold you in a certain way, like a football, and like magic, no more crying.”

  “Wait, Grams. You mean Hannah. He could hold Hannah.”

  “What?”

  “Just now…when you were telling the story. You were talking about Uncle Gary. How he could make the baby stop crying, and you said ‘you.’ But his daughter was Hannah.”

  “I did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oy, oy, oy.” She tapped the side of her head. “My mind. Sometimes it goes a little haywire. Grandpa Harry, he always used to say, ‘Gert, you don’t know how to tell a story.’”

  “You’re doing fine. Just keep going.” But for the first time that I could recall, Grams was at a loss for words. “Yoo-hoo? Anyone home? You were just getting to the good part. Don’t zone out on me now.”

  “Sorry. I can’t seem to remember the rest. I’m old, you know…memory loss…”

  “Oh, give me a break. You’re sharp as a tack when you want to be. What happened next?”

  “Finish your pancakes.”

  “If you finish the story.”

  “Maybe another time. I gotta take my pills now, otherwise I’m no good for the day.”

  “But you can’t just leave me hanging. It’s like when I read a new script. I can’t stand the suspense, so I go right to the end. Just tell me what happened to Penelope and Hannah. When’s the last time you saw them? How come nobody ever talks about them? God, it must be terrible for you to have this other granddaughter you never get to see.”

  “I see her,” she blurted.

  “Are you serious? You know where Hannah is?”

  She nodded.

  “I don’t believe it. You’re telling me I have a first cousin who would be about my age, but nobody ever said, hey, you know what? Maybe she and Claire should meet?”

  Grams’ eyes welled up. “When she was little, she was with me every day.”

  “You mean in your heart.”

  “I mean I’d drive over to her house, or she’d get dropped off by me.”

  “Wait, wait, wait. That’s not even possible. I was at your house every day, and I never saw another little girl. Don’t you think I would have noticed? Said, hey, Grams. Who’s the spare kid?”

  “…I took her to the park, to ballet classes. I taught her to read, took her to our house in the mountains every summer….”

  “Okay, now you’re really starting to freak me out. It was me, Adam, and Lindsey up in the Catskills. And then Aunt Iris and Uncle Herbie would bring Alison and Hilary after camp. Trust me. There was no little girl named Hannah.”

  “Yes, there was.” Grams’ lips quivered. “We called her by a different name.”

/>   “Well, that makes absolutely no sense.”

  “We had a big problem after she was born, see,” she sobbed. “A mess like you wouldn’t believe. First we bury our son. Then we sit shiva. Then, next thing we know, Penelope runs away in the middle of the night.”

  “Are you serious? She ran away with the baby?”

  “WITHOUT the baby!”

  “Oh my God. That’s awful.”

  “We found this cockamamie note in the stroller saying Hannah was better off without her. And that was that…a seven-week-old baby’s got no father, no mother….”

  “What did you do? Did Penelope come back? What happened to Hannah?”

  Grams took a deep breath. “What happened to her is…now she’s this beautiful young lady.”

  “Well, wait. How do you know that?”

  “I know because I see her from time to time.”

  “This is nuts. If the two of you have a relationship, how come you never mentioned her before? Where does she live? What does she look like?”

  “What does she look like? Actually”—she blinked—“she looks like…you.”

  “Me? Really?”

  “I bet I couldn’t tell you apart.”

  “They say everyone has a twin.” I shrugged. “I just wish you’d let me meet her.”

  “Fine. You want to meet her?” Grams led me by the hand into the bathroom. “Let’s go.”

  “What are you doing? Where are we going?”

  “I’m introducing you to Hannah.” She cupped my chin. “Take a good look in the mirror.”

  “‘Take a good look in the mirror,’” I mimicked her. “Don’t take this wrong, Grams. But you’ve completely gone off the deep end.”

  “I know, my shayna madel. But listen to me. You wanted to meet Hannah, and here she is.”

  It took me a moment to follow her twisted trail. Then a ripple of nausea roared through my innards like a monstrous wave crashing into shore. “OH MY GOD!” I grabbed hold of the sink to catch my fall. “OH MY GOD!” My heart nearly pounded out of my chest. “Me?” I shrieked. “Me?”

  Grams looked away, too frightened to examine the crime scene.

  “NO!” I screamed. “No, no, no, no…. How can I be Hannah? I’m Claire. Claire Greene.”

  “No, darling. You’re both.”

  “I’m both?” I repeated before slumping onto the toilet seat and crying into a towel. How could I be both? My parents were Lenny and Roberta. My brother was Adam, my sister was Lindsey…Grams was out of her mind. She was doing this to get attention. Or maybe she was overdosing on all those drugs she took. Soon she would be one of those unforgettable 20/20 stories: “Florida’s delusional, granny-tripping psychopaths.”

  “A million times I said to your mother, tell her already,” Grams rambled. “And she’d say, what good’s it gonna do her? And I’d say, if it was you, wouldn’t you want to know the truth? And she’d say no. And then I’d say, fine. If you’re not gonna tell her, I’ll tell her….”

  I stopped listening. All I could think was if I wasn’t me, if I was really someone else, then it was time to find out if the gun in the hamper was loaded, for surely I would never recover from the shock that my whole life had been one huge lie. Or that I had been so deaf, dumb, and blind I needed an eighty-four-year-old woman to point out what should have been obvious.

  Suddenly images clicked in my head like a roll of film being developed. One at a time a vivid picture slid down the shoot: my mother’s refusal to talk about her kid brother…Grams’ slip of the tongue about Uncle Gary holding me…the young, unwed mother who ran away without her baby…the way I stuck out in family photos like a green bean among fat tomatoes…Grams’ relationship with Hannah that was identical to her relationship with me…my family’s spooked reaction to hearing the name Fabrikant….

  I flipped up the toilet seat lid and upchucked fear and phlegm.

  “Oy. Look what you’re doing,” Grams scolded. “I just washed the floor, and the girl don’t come till Friday.”

  “Hey! Fuck the floor, okay?” I yelled into the cavernous blue bowl.

  “This is what I was afraid of…you getting sick over this.”

  “What the hell did you expect?” I gagged. “You’ve had thirty years to get used to the idea…I’ve had, what? Thirty seconds. I can’t fucking believe this…. I’m adopted…adopted….”

  “Better than being thrown out with the garbage.”

  “Oh my God, that’s right…I was almost an abortion.”

  “I prayed every night she’d change her mind.”

  “Do you swear you’re telling me the truth?” I shouted, my hair sticky with retch. “This isn’t your way of getting back at us because you think no one cares about you?”

  “It’s the God’s honest truth, honey.” She grabbed more tissues. “It’s a shock. I know.”

  “A shock?” I choked. “No. Uh-uh. Sorry. A shock is when you win a contest or…or you flunk your road test! This is a fucking nightmare. How could I be someone else? I’m Claire Greene!”

  I flushed the toilet, then balanced on my knees, the cool tiles digging into my skin. “This is insane. I don’t know who I am! What my real name is…. Wait. What is my real name?”

  “Oy. You’re not gonna like this.”

  “Oh. Like it’s any better to find out you’ve been deceived your whole life?”

  “So fine. You wanna hear your name? I’ll tell you your name. You were born Hannah Claire.”

  “Hannah Claire what?” I pounded my fist on the wall.

  “Hannah Claire…Fabrikant.”

  I let out a wail so shrill and piercing, the sound reverberated through the near-vacant apartment. And though my raw throat burned with dread, there was something else I had to know. “And who was Abe?”

  Grams steadied herself by clinging to the bathroom door. “You’ll never believe.”

  “Who was he, goddamn it?” I yelled. “Tell me right now!”

  “I’m trying, believe me.” She hollered back. “Oy. Of all the people to drop dead on your lap, God had to make him Penelope’s idiot father!”

  “OH MY GOD!”

  “How’s that for a fine how do you do? You finally meet your grandfather, then ker-plop, he’s gone. Well, at least thank God you got to talk to him for a while.”

  “Nooooooo.” I vomited again, then collapsed on the foul-smelling floor. Suddenly I recalled yesterday’s conversation at La Guardia.

  “Will your grandfather be needing any special assistance?” the gate agent had asked as she waited for my boarding pass to print out. “My grandfather?” I said. Frankly, it was a little late for special assistance, as both of them were dead. “Aren’t you two traveling together?…Your seat assignment is next to his…I thought I noticed a resemblance.”

  What a nightmare. My life had just become a Stephen King novel. The wicked gate agent seats an unsuspecting girl next to a stranger, who is really her grandfather. Then he dies on her lap, and comes back to haunt her. Damn! The only thing I hated more than Stephen King was irony!

  Chapter 11

  IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING AN ACCIDENT, SURVIVORS SAY THAT THEY experience a series of involuntary responses. The body’s way of coping with the sudden impact of catastrophic injuries. So when I was clobbered by the emotional equivalent of a six-car pileup, instinctively I wanted to downshift into a fight-or-flight mode. But my grandmother said, “No ma’am. Nothin’ doing.” I could not go to the aftershock party like everyone else. Better I should wash my face, sit down at the table, and finish my pancakes.

  “Eat pancakes?” I just looked at her. “Are you freakin’ kidding me?”

  “Trust me. You’ll feel better.”

  “Why? Are they made with Paxil?” I knew my grandmother had a few short circuits, but even she should be able to appreciate that it would take me years, not minutes, to recover from this horrifying discovery. And enough money to keep one lucky therapist busy till the day he or she died.

  “What good’s it gonna
do you to sit and sulk?” Grams tried to woo me from my fetal position in the corner of her bedroom.

  “Gee, I don’t know,” I cried. “I haven’t had a chance to try.”

  “Maybe you’ll feel better if you hear the whole story.”

  “Oooh. That’s what I was thinking. Let’s talk over cyanide cocktails.”

  But before I could sidle up to the bar there was a knock at the door. My grandmother’s next-door neighbor, Lillian, had heard screams and wanted us to know we had nothing to worry about. She had just called the police.

  Talk about irony. Grams had once told me she was going to call the cops on Lillian. To report her suspicions of a busy brothel. How else to explain the comings and goings of so many men, and the sounds of Sinatra blaring at eight o’clock in the morning?

  From my floor-level view in the bedroom, I could tell that Lillian had rushed right over, as she was still in uniform. There she stood in a black see-through nightie, which, trust me, you didn’t want to see through. And wasn’t one leg of hers shorter than the other? Only in Miami could an aging gimp prostitute with penciled-on eyebrows have a steady following.

  Then I felt shame and confusion. I was in the middle of a life-altering crisis. I should be smashing the last of Grams’ lamps. Threatening to use the gun in the hamper. Not concerning myself with an old lady who had found a clever way to supplement her Social Security income.

  “What do you mean, Claire knows everything now?” Lillian’s bellow got my attention. “Oy vey, Gert! Roberta’s gonna wring your little neck.”

  “He dropped dead on her lap, for Christ’s sake. I should just say nothing?”

  “Well, if you ask me, she got this far without knowing the truth—why rock the boat?”

  “You don’t know Claire. She’s my tough one. She’ll be fine.”

  “I hope you’re right. ’Cause all you hear on the news today are stories about adopted kids going crazy looking for their real families. They go searching on that damn Intercom…. Turns everyone’s life upside down. Who needs it?”

  “It’s not the Intercom, you old fool. It’s the Interstate…. And Claire won’t be out there looking for no one! She’s got all the family she needs!”