by Jean Martino
Her mind was spinning with images of Cindy. What the hell was she doing here in Australia when her daughter on the other side of the world might need her? Why hadn’t Cindy gotten on that plane? Why hadn’t she called? Damn it Cindy! Where are you?
* *
Costa Mesa, California…June 2001:
“Hey Mom!” yelled Cindy, as the front door flew open and Cindy rushed inside. “Where are you?”
“I’m in the bedroom,” Linda called back, smoothing the white eyelet cotton covered quilt over her king size bed and placing matching covered pillows against the headboard.
Cindy burst into the room like a tornado, her high energy level always startling Linda. She rushed forward and gave Linda a peck on the cheek then thrust a large flat gold box with a gold ribbon around it into her hands. “Happy 48 birthday, Mom,” she cried, then threw herself onto the newly made up bed, stretching her arms back against the headboard. “Love the smell of your bed,” she laughed, turning to sniff at the freshly laundered white eyelet cotton pillow cases. “I think you must be the only woman in America who sun dries her laundry instead of using the dryer.” Then she leapt off the bed, her black eyes shining, her smile exposing perfect white teeth.
“I just made that bed up,” groaned Linda, sitting down on the edge of it holding the gift box. “What’s this?” she asked with a grin.
“Open it,” said Cindy, grinning as she walked around the room, sniffing her mother’s perfume bottles, and flipping the lids up on all the music boxes as she had done since she was a child. But now that child was a tall, slim, beautiful young woman wearing jeans that Linda thought were too tight and a white top that ended just above the waistband which lifted when she moved to expose her golden skin beneath it. Her black hair cascaded down over her face and chest and Linda wanted desperately to brush it aside and tie it back with a ribbon, but Cindy loved to flick her head and send it flying back on its own.
Linda pulled the ribbon off the gold box and lifted the lid, then let out a gasp of surprise as she moved the tissue paper aside and took out the gold framed painting of her and Vito after they were married in Las Vegas. “Oh my God, Cindy,” she cried. “How did you do this?”
Cindy fell on her knees in front of her laughing. “Don’t you just love it?” she said. “I snuck that photo you and Dad had taken after your wedding in Vegas out last time I was here and had a friend of mine enlarge it and make it look like a painting. You always said you regretted not having a decent wedding photo, so now you have one.”
“It’s... incredible,” said Linda, her emotions at seeing the picture now turned miraculously into a painting, about to spill over, causing her voice to crack. “Thank you so much, Cindy. I love it. Honest I do.” She leaned forward and planted a kiss on Cindy’s cheek. “What a lovely surprise.”
Cindy jumped up quickly and checked her watch. “Gotta go, Mom,” she cried. “Michael and I will be back at eight tonight to take you to the Red Onion for your birthday dinner. Can’t wait. See you then.” And then she was rushing out of the room again and Linda cringed when she heard the front door slam.
For a long time she sat on the bed, staring at the painting. Her naturally blond hair then had been shoulder length and very straight, her face fuller. They had exchanged their vows in the Chapel of The Roses, but she couldn’t remember how much it had cost; only that the price had included this photo and two copies. After the ceremony Vito had taken her to dinner on the top floor of the Sahara and they had danced to the music of a piano player only. Their wedding had been simple, no family or friends or relatives, but it had been the most wonderful day of her life.
It had blown her away that Cindy had thought to enhance the photo for her like this. She didn’t know how she was going to tell her tonight that she was going back to Australia for a very long visit.
She stood up and took the painting out into the living room. On the mantelpiece over the rock fireplace Vito had built were the two studio portraits of Cindy and Michael’s wedding. She moved them apart, putting her and Vito’s painting in the middle, then stood back to admire them. She never got tired of looking at Cindy and Michael’s wedding portraits. The one of just Cindy and Michael showed Cindy looking stunning in her white satin and lace off the shoulder wedding dress, that had cost Linda five thousand dollars and had been worth every cent of it to see her daughter so happy and radiant, her black hair pulled back and entwined with orange blossoms. Michael looked so proud and handsome in his black tuxedo, his skin tanned from his and Cindy’s bike riding and surfing and his blond hair bleached from the sun. At six feet two inches he towered even over Cindy, something that pleased Cindy immensely, who had always complained she was too tall. The other photo was a group one, which always made Linda smile seeing Michael’s five foot tall mother sandwiched between her tall son and equally tall husband. The photographer had been considerate enough to place a small platform there for Carmel to stand on. But Michael still laughed when he visited her and looked at the photo.
“At least Aunt Jessica,” he would say, pointing to the photo doesn’t look as out of place between you and Uncle Bill, despite his tallness. My mom looks like a little kid who wandered into the wrong photography session.”
“I think she looks cute,” Cindy would always say. “She has such beautiful skin and rosy cheeks and you have her lovely brown eyes.”
Linda had been as nervous as all get out meeting Michael’s parents, especially when he told her what devout Baptists they were. Geoff had startled her with his somberness; he had reminded her of one of those tall, thin, bald Evangelistic preachers that went around to small country towns preaching hell fire and damnation. He didn’t crack a smile during the whole service, not even when welcoming Cindy into their family.
Returning her attention to her own wedding portrait now she sighed deeply. “She’s not going to like it, Vito,” she said, staring at his smiling face in the painting. “She’ll hate me for it. But I have to get away from here for a while. I can’t take this loneliness here any longer.”
She walked into the sun splashed kitchen and made a cup of tea, carrying it out onto the patio where she loved to sit in the mornings and enjoy all that Vito had done in their garden. Her eyes swept over the ivy covered stone walls surrounding the garden, then over the stone paths Vito had laid for her in the lawn that led down to her vegetable garden and the flower patches. Everything reminded her of Vito. She couldn’t get away from all the memories that had haunted her for the last eight years since his death. She was living in limbo, not really living even, just existing.
She wished now she had let Cindy and Michael have this house when they got married instead of buying them that small house in Huntington Beach that only moved Cindy further away from her. This house is too big for me, now, Vito. And it feels empty now you’ve gone. Perhaps if I’d let them have this house they would have given me a grandchild at least instead of insisting their careers were all they wanted right now.
She walked down to the end of the garden, turning to look back at her house. She had promised Cindy a year ago, the night before Cindy’s wedding, that she’d never sell it. Cindy loved the house as much as she did. But Cindy didn’t realize how empty it would become when she moved out; and neither did she.
Walking back up the stone path Vito had so carefully laid, she stopped to tug out some weeds from amongst the bushes, tossing them onto the path. Over this last year she had felt her interest in everything starting to dwindle, even her home and garden. Vito had worked himself to death and for what? She had tried to tell him so many times that she already had all she needed, that she didn’t need to be rich, that she didn’t need a bigger home or a fancier car or all that money he was accumulating in their IRA tax deferred account in the Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco for their retirement years. But Vito never listened. Vito had been on some kind of a self destructive mission that she had no part in and finally it had killed him.
She stopped weeding and sat on the garden seat,
wondering why she was bothering with all this now of all times. Her eyes swept around the yard, trying to cement how it looked in her mind, knowing that in a couple of weeks someone else would be sitting there enjoying her garden.
Standing up again, she uncoiled the hose then turned on the tap, and sprinkled the garden. She had gradually burned all her bridges. Selling all those income properties had given her an enormous feeling of relief. She grinned, remembering how her tax accountant had gone crazy trying to sort out how much went to her and how much to the IRS. She had even felt a bit sorry for him.
“You’ll need to invest this money in something else,” he told her. “Leaving it in the bank is throwing it away. You already have almost a half million dollars in your tax deferred IRA account with Wells Fargo bank in San Francisco. As you know, you can’t touch that until you turn 65 without losing a large percentage of it to taxes and by that time it should have doubled with interest.”
She nodded, thinking this was all too crazy. She’d had no experience in dealing with money. Vito had always taken care of that for them. The proceeds from his life insurance policy and the sale of his business partnership had not been such a headache. She had used some of it to buy Cindy the house she and Michael wanted in Huntington Beach then shoved the rest into the IRA account. But now she was faced with having to put another half million into that account and somehow it seemed ridiculous to have all that money coming back to her when she was 65. And she certainly didn’t need all that money to live on right now. The house was free and clear and her expenses were minimal.
“I’m curious,” the man said, “about why your IRA funds are in Wells Fargo bank in San Francisco. Why didn’t you open an account with a local bank in LA?”
“Vito opened that account with them when he first arrived in California. He lived in San Francisco for a couple years. Why he didn’t close it when he moved to LA is anybody’s business. He had bank accounts here also for his business and our personal accounts, in United California Bank. But for some reason when he started the IRA account he must have decided he wanted it in the San Francisco bank. I really don’t know. Perhaps it was superstition on his part, you know his first bank account sort of thing.” She shrugged. “I never questioned him on anything to do with money. Does it matter?”
The accountant shook his head. “Not really. But it still leaves the problem of what to do with this money from the sale of your income properties. I‘m not a financial advisor but I think you should check into putting it into something more lucrative than certificates of deposit with the bank.”
That night when Michael and Cindy had dinner at her house, Linda told them what her accountant had said. “He told me I had to reinvest it within a certain time frame to avoid more taxes being taken out of it.”
“Give it to the homeless,” said Cindy, getting up and carrying dishes out to the kitchen. “That’s what I’d do.”
Michael shook his head at his wife’s lack of interest in money.
“I’ve already donated heaps to charity,” Linda called after her. “Somehow I don’t think your father would have wanted me to give them the lot.” She turned back to Michael. That investment company you work for,” she said, handing him the balance sheet her accountant had given her that morning, “would there be anything they could invest it in for me that would keep it safe that’s not too risky?”
“Sure,” he said, scanning her balance sheet then handing it back to her. “I could invest whatever amount you want into a mutual funds account for you. Of course there are risks involved in that too, but the spread of stocks in a mutual funds account can balance out to a healthy profit in time. It’s just a matter of keeping on top of everything and taking into consideration the ups and downs in the stock market.”
“And I’d get quarterly dividend cheques?”
“You can. Or if you don’t want them you can have them reinvested in your account.”
Linda turned her head to watch Cindy rinsing off dishes at the sink. Despite Cindy’s disinterest in money, eventually it would all go to her anyway and she wanted to do the right thing by her, perhaps set it up in her will that a Trustee should manage it for her to stop her from throwing it all away.
“Can you open an account for me with your company and handle it for me?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said. “I promise I’ll give it my own personal attention. In fact you don’t even need to come into the office. I can bring all the forms here for you to sign and go over them with you.”
“Great,” she said. “Then let’s do it as soon as possible before my poor accountant has a nervous breakdown worrying about it.”
* *
As she was collecting all the weeds together to put in the bin, the phone inside the house started ringing. Dropping everything she rushed to answer it.
“Hello,” she said a little breathlessly.
“Happy birthday to you... happy birthday to you... ”
Linda burst out laughing as she heard Jessica and Bill’s voices singing to her from Australia.
“Thank you,” she said, still laughing when they stopped.
“How are you enjoying your birthday so far?” asked Jessica.
“I’ve been weeding the garden,” said Linda. “And Cindy stopped by this morning and gave me this beautiful painting she had made of Vito and my wedding photo. It’s gorgeous.”
“Have you told her yet of your plans to fly here?”
Linda groaned. “Not yet. She’s going to flip when I tell her I’m flying over for a year.”
“Linda, you have to tell her soon. You’re flight is only two weeks away and you have to make the arrangements to store your things and rent the place out for that year. Unless you’ve changed your mind about that.”
“No, I haven’t” said Linda. “I just haven’t found the right time to tell Cindy yet. I know, I know, I’m leaving it a bit late, but if I’d told her two months back when I made my decision she would have tried to talk me out of it. And I don’t know how I would have handled that. Cindy and Michael are taking me to a birthday dinner tonight at this Mexican food restaurant in Newport Beach. I’ll tell them then. I promise.”
“Okay, love,” said Jessica. “You have a great time tonight then and I’ll call you in a couple days and see how it’s all going. Cindy and Michael will be alright. They have each other and their work. And you need to get away from everything for a while. Get your perspective back in life. We’ve got your room all set up and ready for you. I can’t wait to see you again.”
That night, at the restaurant, as soon as they had their first drinks on the table, Linda plunged right into her news. “I’m thinking of flying to Australia for a vacation,” she said, sipping her margarita.
“That’s a great idea, Mom,” said Cindy, her black eyes sparkling in the candle light. “It will do you a world of good.”
“Why not take a trip around the world?” said Michael. “You have enough coming in from the dividends on your investments to pay for it.”
Linda nodded. The money from the dividend checks was piling up in her savings account. It seemed that no matter what she did, she was continuing to make more money than she needed to live on. And neither Cindy nor Michael would allow her to give any of it to them; not that they needed it; they both were doing very well financially themselves.
“Michael,” Cindy admonished him. “Don’t get carried away. A couple weeks in Australia are enough for mother at her age.”
Linda burst out laughing as the waiter stopped by with their salads. “Good Lord, Cindy!” she cried. “I’m not ready for a rest home yet. In fact I was thinking more like six months or a year in Australia. Give me a chance to really get to know my sister again and her family.”
Cindy gasped. “A year! Mercy Mother, that’s too long.”
They ate in silence for a while, then Linda laid down her fork and picked up her drink to sip on it. “I’ve always felt bad that I wasn’t there when my father and mother passed,” she said
with a catch in her throat. She would never forget the day Jessica had called to tell her of their car accident and deaths, and how she had gone into shock and collapsed; unable to even fly back there for their funeral, leaving it all to poor Jessica to deal with. “I would like to spend more time with my sister and her family before any more years go by.” She looked over at Cindy and Michael. “You’re both doing so well in your careers now and don’t need me---”
“That’s not true,” cried Cindy. “I’ll always need you. Perhaps lately I’ve been busy on those assignments but I always knew you were there if I needed you.”
Linda reached over and put her hand over Cindy’s. “It’s not forever, Cindy. A year will go by very fast. And you have Michael. Right, Michael?”
“Damn right,” he said, putting his arm around Cindy’s shoulders. “Your mom is right, honey. She has to live her own life now. And we have no right to try and stop her.”
Linda felt her heart go out to him. He always knew the right things to say and he always cut right to the chase.
