Claire Voyant

by Saralee Rosenberg

  “All I’m saying is she would never go out and find the family and not tell me. She couldn’t keep a secret for five minutes. You think she could keep news like that for thirty years?”

  “So fine, then.” He sniffed. “Explain to me how the hell a man we couldn’t find ended up with dozens of pictures of Claire. You think maybe the guy at Fotomat was in on this?”

  “How should I know how he got them? Maybe he hired a private eye or something.”

  “No way.” Ben puffed out his chest. “My father would never have stooped to anything so underhanded.”

  “Yeah. You didn’t know my Pops,” Drew added. “He never did a dishonest thing in his life.”

  “Shows ya what you know.” Grams snorted.

  “What?” My father’s back stiffened.

  “He didn’t pay off no spy.” Grams stared at the floor.

  “Ma! What do you mean? Do you know something?”

  Suddenly all eyes were on the elderly woman who was swaying in her chair.

  “Mrs. Moss, please,” Ben said. “Can you explain any of this?”

  “I may know a thing or two.”

  “Grams! Oh my God…Stop playing these stupid-ass games. Do you or don’t you know anything?”

  My dad groaned. “The mouth, Claire. Watch the mouth.”

  “Who knew the son-of-a-bitch was going to die?” Grams blurted.

  “What is she talking about?” My mother yelled at my father.

  “How the hell should I know? She’s your mother. Gert, What the hell are you talking about? Who wasn’t supposed to die?”

  “Abe Fabrikant! That’s who!”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” I cried. “You swore up and down you never met him.”

  “That’s right. I didn’t.”

  “But you talked to him?”

  “Once.” Her lower lip puckered. “After Penelope disappeared on us.”

  “You what?” My father paced like a prosecutor. “You knew where he was?”

  “Yeah, I found him.”

  “AND YOU DIDN’T TELL US?” he yelled.

  “I did what I had to do,” she whispered.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Gert. Stop your nonsense. You couldn’t possibly have found him. We didn’t even know his name, where he lived. Today you go on the Internet, and boom, there’s your guy. But that was the dark ages back then.”

  “From 1974 to 1978, he lived with his wife Esther at 4134 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida. Then they bought a home at 2385 Cocoa Plum Circle, Coconut Grove. Then after she died in 1992, Abe moved into a condo at 101 Bal Harbor Tower in Bal Harbor—”

  “Whoa. Hold on here.” My father held up his hand. “What are you all of a sudden? Directory Assistance? Is she right about any of this, Ben?”

  Ben and Drew’s eyes were locked in the stunned position.

  “What is happening here?” I banged my fist on the bed. “I don’t understand.”

  “That makes two of us.” My father glared at Gert. “Of all the rotten things you’ve done over the years, this is unbelievable. You knew how hard we tried to find Penelope’s family. You knew we called the police, we hired a private investigator, we even went to the FBI and filed a missing person’s report. And what about all the time I took off time from work and schlepped into the city looking for people who might know her from school?”

  “Oh my God!” I choked. “It all makes perfect sense now. You wanted to get rid of me.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Foam sprayed from his mouth like a perfect espresso. “We were crazy about you. We’d never seen a more perfect baby. But you gotta understand the circumstances, Claire. We were scared to death. And here you were, this tiny, helpless little infant. Your father was dead, and God knows where your wacko mother was, taking off in the middle of a night like a bandit.”

  “Yeah.” My mother’s head bobbed. “She leaves this ferkakteh note in the stroller saying she wasn’t ready to be a mother, and could we please remember to buy formula because she was down to her last can.”

  “It’s blowing me away that Aunt Penny did something so low,” Drew said.

  “Low?” my father yelled. “Are you kidding? It was downright criminal. I mean, you hear about ghetto kids abandoning their babies in Dumpsters. But she was supposedly this rich kid with brains.”

  “She always seemed a little selfish to me,” my mother sniffed. “And very disagreeable.”

  “Yeah, and we were married, what, Roberta? Maybe six, seven months? We were kids ourselves. Who was thinking of starting a family? But it wasn’t even that. We were scared to death that we would fall in love with you, Claire, and then one day out of the blue Penelope would just show up and say, ‘Hey, everyone, thanks for your trouble, but I’m taking my daughter back now.’”

  “We didn’t know what the hell to do. So we thought, all right. Before this goes any further, let’s try to find her family.”

  “And Gert, how the hell did you even find the Fabrikants? I spent thousands on that idiot PI, and all he came up with was some family in Michigan who claimed they had a daughter Penelope at NYU…but she turned to out to be black.”

  “I got lucky. That’s how.” Grams sighed. “’Cause Miss Smarty Pants was in such a rush to leave, see. She forgot to clean out one of the drawers in Gary’s room. I found a bunch of receipts, some phone numbers…called ’em all.”

  “Ma, I can’t believe you never told us. With everything that was going on, how could you not have said a word? That was selfish and irresponsible and—”

  “Shows ya what you know!” She waved her bony finger. “I did what I had to do, see? You were all so busy trying to get everything back to normal, when there was no baby, no funerals, no shiva…but what good was that gonna do me? You think my life was ever gonna be normal again?”

  “I don’t believe this.” My father slumped into a chair.

  “I lost my one son. Over my dead body was I gonna lose my one grandchild. No sir. Nobody was takin’ away my little Claireleh. I knew God gave her to me to make up for having to take Gary. Whadya think? I should go help you find the family so you could give the baby back to the idiot mother who didn’t want her in the first place? What kind of life would she have had? The girl had no money, no husband…. I used to find them marijuana cigarettes in her jacket pocket. At least with us Claire could be from a nice Jewish family, she’d get a good education, a good upbringing.”

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” my mother gasped.

  “It’s blowing my mind, Gert.” My father’s eyes misted. “Our whole lives would have been different if you’d just told us you found the father.”

  “No, you mean it would have been better,” I cried. “You mean you wouldn’t have had to raise me, or had all this aggravation.”

  “That’s not what I mean, and you know it. I’m just in a little bit of shock here, okay? I’m not saying our lives would have been better, I’m saying that if we knew about Penelope’s father, the whole damn story would have played out differently, and that’s a hell of a thing to consider. You make a right turn instead of a left, and the rest of your life is changed forever.”

  “But the important thing,” Ben jumped in, “is that it all worked out okay. Gert made a great decision. Claire was raised by a wonderful family.”

  “Thank you.” My father closed his eyes and patted his heart. “We did our best.”

  “You sure did.” Drew slapped him on the back. “Claire is a great girl.”

  Great enough to dump your shallow, self-absorbed fiancée and fall in love with me?

  “There is something I’m curious about.” Ben looked at Gert. “And I hope you don’t mind my asking. But what exactly did you say to my parents?”

  “What do you mean, what did I say?” Grams shrugged. “I told them the God’s honest truth. After I got your father on the line, I says, ‘Mr. Fabrikant? My name is Gertrude Moss of 2453 Lawson Lane in Valley Stream, New York, and I’m calling to tell you that your
daughter Penelope has had a baby girl with my son Gary. But now he’s dead from a car crash, and she ran away, and I was wondering if maybe you heard from her…. I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t interrupt your supper.’”

  “That’s what you said?” Ben laughed. ‘I hope I didn’t interrupt your supper’?”

  “’Cause I know how people get when their food is getting cold. They don’t act nice.”

  “Did you speak to my mother, too? I can’t believe she knew that their darling daughter had an unwanted pregnancy.”

  “Ben. Please.” My father pointed to me. “Claire has feelings, you know.”

  I just looked at him. Suddenly he was Mr. Sensitive?

  “Sorry, Claire,” Ben said. “I’m just in shock…. You have to understand that my whole life all I ever heard was, Penelope is so beautiful, and Penelope is so talented…she could do no wrong, and I was the rotten bum.”

  “I never spoke to the girl’s mother,” Grams interrupted. “But believe you me, if I had, I would have told her a thing or two about raising good daughters.”

  “So wait, Ma,” said my father. “What did Abe tell you?”

  “Oh. Well. First I thought he was playin’ tricks on me, asking what Penelope ate for breakfast, if she had any birthmarks. But he was just makin’ sure I wasn’t one of those people who make up stories to get money…. And that was it. I only talked to him that one time.”

  “Yes, but what did he say about the baby?” my father cried.

  “What did he say? He said he couldn’t take her, if that’s why I was calling. And I couldn’t call him no more on account of his wife’s high blood pressure, but I could write him letters to tell him how Hannah was doing.”

  “And you did that?” I gulped. “You wrote to him?”

  “Every month. Never missed a one. Not even when Harry died.”

  From the collective gasping, it sounded like we were all on respirators.

  “But why, Grams?” I asked. “Why would you bother keeping in touch with a man who obviously didn’t give a shit whether he had a granddaughter or not? Did he ever ask to meet me? Did he ever try to get his daughter to come back for me?”

  “Why don’t you ask him that?” my father sniffed. “You seem to have a direct connection.”

  “Would you listen to yourself, Lenny?” my mother yelled. “Enough with the wiseguy remarks.”

  “I’m sorry.” I shivered. “I’m finding all of this very hard to believe. From everything I’ve heard about Abe, he was this wonderful, generous human being who couldn’t turn his back on total strangers. Yet he didn’t want to bother with his own flesh and blood? It makes no sense.”

  “Because he didn’t want Penelope to have the baby, see?” Gert said. “He said she didn’t deserve you on account of the fact that she was a selfish birdbrain who lived with her head in the clouds, and would make a terrible mother because she couldn’t even take care of herself, let alone a small baby.”

  “My father actually said that?” Ben smiled.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So Grams, if he said he didn’t want his daughter to have me, and he didn’t want me, why did you keep writing to him? Why didn’t you just hang up the phone after that first call and say to hell with this guy?”

  “Because I made a deal with him, that’s why. A deal with the devil, it turns out.”

  “You’re calling my Pops a devil?” Drew frowned.

  “’Cause he promised if I would help raise the baby, and I wrote to him and sent him pictures, and told him how she was growing up, he would send me money for her.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” my father exploded. “He was paying you all these years, and you never gave us a dime? You knew how I struggled with the business and three kids—”

  “What money, Leonard? The son-of-a-bitch never sent me a lousy red cent! All these years I’m writing letters and sending pictures, the invitations to Claire’s birthday parties.”

  “Did he used to write you back?” Drew asked.

  “Only to give me his new address.”

  “So wait, Ma. Why did you keep sending him stuff if he never answered you?”

  “Because I told you. We made a deal. He promised to give me money for Claire if I kept writing to him. So if I stopped writing, he’d think he didn’t have to make good on his end of the bargain. That’s why I figured, what does it cost me to send him letters? Some paper and a lousy stamp.”

  “This is such a shock.” Ben shook his head. “Claire is right, though. That doesn’t even sound like him. He was a very wealthy man, Mrs. Moss. And he never went back on his word. Are you sure you got the story straight? Are you sure he offered to send money?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” she hollered. “Do I look like I don’t know what I’m talking about?”

  “No, no. Of course not. It’s just that it was a very emotional time in your life. You lost your son. There was a baby to deal with. Maybe you misunderstood his intentions. Maybe you heard wrong.”

  “I heard every blessed word of that conversation.” Grams shook a finger in Ben’s face. “Every blessed word…and Gertrude Moss never forgets a promise, you understand? He said, ‘Don’t call me on the telephone again, no matter what. This has to be our little secret. But I get mail from people all over the world, and anything addressed to me, my wife doesn’t open. So send me letters, and I will help take care of Claire.’”

  “Okay, but he didn’t actually say he’d send money?” Ben asked.

  “Well, what’d ya think he meant, sonny boy? He sure as heck wasn’t planning to come help us change diapers. Of course it meant he would send me money. So she wouldn’t be a burden on the family.”

  “Well, did you ever ask him in one of your letters?” My father sniffed. “What’s the deal here, Abe? I’m sending you pictures every month, where’s the dough?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause I’m not pushy like you. I have my own ways of doin’ things.”

  “Oh. Well, great job, Gert. I got stuck footing the bill all these years when a little financial support would have been very helpful. You have any idea what it cost to keep three kids in camp, and braces, then there were the bar and bat mitzvahs, sweet sixteens, college…”

  “That’s why he’s a son-of-a-bitch!”

  “Well, if he’s such a son-of-a-bitch,” my father asked, “why the hell did you say he wasn’t supposed to die?”

  Gert’s lip puckered.

  “Ma. What’s the matter? What aren’t you telling us?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this no more.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t want to talk about this?” my father yelled. “You can’t just open this huge can of worms and then decide you don’t feel like telling us the whole story!”

  “You’re gonna be very angry, that’s why.”

  “I’m ALREADY angry…what the hell difference does it make?”

  “Lenny, sha! Stop scaring her. You want her to start burping?”

  “Grams, c’mon,” I whispered. “Spill it before I turn you upside down and shake it out of you.”

  “Please, Mrs. Moss,” Ben said sweetly. “No one is going to be angry with you.”

  “Shows you what you know,” she sighed. But a deep breath later, she finished her story.

  “A few weeks ago, Abe finally gets around to sending me a stinking letter. Can you imagine? Took him thirty years to get off his fat heiny and write me back. And I’m thinking, see, I was right. I did what I promised, now he’s finally going to do what he promised. But guess what? No check. Just a note saying he’s coming to New York for a family party, and he’s getting on in years, and he’d like to meet Claire.”

  “Oh my God.” I felt my heart palpitate.

  “So I write him back and I say, no, that’s not possible, you can’t just waltz into the kid’s life after all these years and say hello, how do you do, I’m your grandfather. She don’t even know she’s adopted…which, believe me, wasn
’t my idea to keep secret. That I can tell you!

  “Anyways, I got to thinking…. Roberta mentioned Claire was coming to visit me, so I wrote Abe another letter and said, I’ll find out what flight she’s on, then you can make your flight home the same one. At least you’ll get to see what she looks like in person.”

  “Oh my God!” I screamed. “You set me up? You did this?”

  “Jesus Christ, Gert!” My father smacked his forehead. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “So he writes me back, and he says, yes, that’s what he’s going to do. He’s going to take the same flight as Claire, but would it be okay if he called the airline to request that they sit together?”

  “No!” I burst into tears. “NOOOOO!”

  “So I send him another letter that says, no, you can’t sit next to her ’cause you might let it slip who you are…but I guess he didn’t get that one in time ’cause now we all know where he sat.”

  “For God’s sakes, Gert! What do you live in? A cave? Why didn’t you just pick up the goddamn phone and say, ‘Hey look. You lost the right to have any contact with Claire thirty years ago’?”

  “’Cause he told me never to call him at home.” Grams shrugged.

  “When his wife was alive, fine, that I can understand. But what the hell difference would it have made if you called him now? It wasn’t even long distance!”

  “Maybe I didn’t want to, okay? ’Cause maybe I was thinkin’ it might be nice if the two of them got to talking. Then it would be in God’s hands. But ya think I would have done this if I knew he was going to drop dead on her lap?”

  “You’re out of your goddamned mind!” My father raised a fist at her.

  “This is an unbelievable story.” Ben’s chin dropped.

  Drew nodded. “Almost like a movie.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve only heard half the script,” I wailed. “Grams, you gotta go home and get your gun.” How can I live with myselfnow? I blew my one and only chance to speak to my grandfather.

  Chapter 19

  IT IS TESTIMONY TO THE HUMAN SPIRIT THAT EVEN IN OUR DARKEST hours the light of hope can be ignited to warm our hearts and to renew our faith.