“The body of an unidentified woman was found late last night near the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Cross Creek Road in the exclusive Malibu Colony area, an apparent hit-and-run victim.” There was no description of the victim given, or any further details, except that the coroner had been called. There was a request for witnesses to come forward, and the number of the LA County Sheriff’s Malibu substation was recited. I punched the button for another news station, heard the weather repeating, tried a third, hoping for more information about the hit-and-run, found none.
“What is it, Mom?” Casey asked, always attuned to me.
“Probably nothing,” I said as I dialed the Malibu substation. The man who answered identified himself as Sergeant Ho. After identifying myself, I asked him, “The woman who was killed on PCH, what time was she hit?”
“Between ten-thirty last night and two this morning,” Sgt. Ho said. “Do you have information?”
I told him about my encounter with the woman at the market, and suggested that Deputy Ray Valdez might have more information about her; perhaps she had shown him some identification.
Sgt. Ho asked me for a description. I told him, Woman in her sixties, wearing well-cut charcoal wool flannel slacks and a smoky gray cashmere pullover sweater; medium-length, medium-brown hair, probably tinted; blue eyes, shorter than me—I am about five-six. No handbag that I saw.
“Why do you think this woman you describe could be the victim?” Ho asked.
“She was out walking near PCH at about the right time,” I said. “She obviously had some big problems. But even if she isn’t the victim, maybe she saw something.”
“Exactly where was she when you saw her?”
“She was standing in the vacant field at the corner of PCH and Webb Way, across from the tree lot.” That is, almost directly in front of the Sheriff’s substation and a long block from the intersection of Cross Creek and PCH.
“What time was that?”
“A little after ten,” I said.
Ho took my phone number, thanked me for the information, and wished me a Happy Thanksgiving. He didn’t seem the least excited about what I told him, indeed, had given me precious little information except the probable three-hour window for the time of death. If I had identified myself as a reporter—I carry a legitimate press pass—he probably would have given me more information, but she wasn’t my story and I had no reason, nor any real desire, to know more. Anyway, I thought, it was a long shot that my woman was the victim, but just in case...
“What was that about?” Casey asked after I hung up.
I told her and Zia about the woman, in brief.
“Look at your face, Mom. She scared you, didn’t she?”
“Yes. A little. You never know what people might do.”
“Lucky you,” Zia said, tears suddenly rolling down her cheeks. “You have two mothers who want you.”
The stranger at the market was forgotten as Zia, who always seemed so pulled-together, had a mini-breakdown over her divorced parents, neither of whom had included their only daughter in holiday plans. One said that travelling across the country over the Thanksgiving weekend just wasn’t worth the effort. The other had recently remarried and wasn’t ready to “blend”—his word—his new family with his old, that is, his nearly grown daughter. Poor Zia, dumped off at a huge university on a far shore from family, felt abandoned, motherless. Parentless.
I watched Casey comfort her roommate, and decided that one day, in some distant future, my daughter, most precious daughter, would be a lovely mother.
For the first time I felt true compassion for that poor woman at the market who seemed to have lost her child. What could be worse than losing a child? I should have been kinder, more patient with the old girl, I thought. And I vowed to be more patient with my own mother over the weekend, even if she launched into an endless verbal ramble about some long-ago and best-forgotten event from her nearly eighty years of experiences. The pre-holiday dose of guilt rose from the pit of my stomach along with the vindaloo-hot residue of Indian food.
I haven’t been to church for a very long time, but I remembered the confessional plea, Forgive me for what I have done and for what I have not done, got hung up on that last part and vowed to be more attentive to my mother than I had been during the year since my father died. I was forty-three years old. I hoped there was time left for atonement. Would atonement require committing no further sins? Dangerous to aim too high. I vowed, then, to just do my best, to be patient at least through the weekend.
I took a deep breath. As Mike always said, in life, there is no re-do. We make decisions based on the information we have at the time. And then we live with those decisions.
3
Mom was sitting on the front porch of her big, old Craftsman house—the house where I was born, where I grew up—when we pulled into the driveway. She waved as she rose, hesitating a bit as she straightened. Her knees seemed to feel stiff lately, but she never complained.
My mother is a tall, sturdy New Englander who transplanted brilliantly to Berkeley where, as a faculty wife with old-fashioned leftist sensibilities and a gift for entertaining, she truly found her niche. She is genuinely dear, but no one could ever call her sweet. Maybe she cuddled me on her lap when I was little, as she had held my daughter, but I don’t remember it. Instead I remember clinging to her hand as she marched for open housing, voting rights, free speech, equality for women, saving the redwoods, and an end to nuclear testing—a gutsy stand when my father was chair of the university physics department, the same one where the father of the American atomic bomb also once taught. She also played cello in a string quartet, taught piano to her friends’ children and accompanied university dance classes. What she did not do was tie ribbons in my hair, tolerate fools, or coddle anyone. If she had flinty edges and could seem formidable, she was also unfailingly honest, pure in her motivations, and funny as hell.
“Here are my girls.” Mom held out her arms and Casey rushed to her, enveloped her grandmother in a hug, lifted her off her feet and gave her a little swing. For as long as I can remember, Mom has worn her hair twisted into a loose, gravity-defying knot held in place by a single long tortoiseshell skewer. It always looks as if it is about to come apart, but, one of the mysteries of physics, it never does, not even when Casey twirled her. Maybe that was part of my father’s attraction to Mom, her defiance of the laws of gravity.
“Good to see you, Gran,” Casey said when Mom again had both feet safely planted on terra firma. “You remember my roommate?”
“Zia, dear, how nice.” Mom held out her arms to Zia, who shyly returned the embrace. “Lovely to see you again. So glad you’ve come.”
“Hello, Mom,” I said. I slung my weekend bag over one shoulder and wrapped my free arm around her; she was bonier than I remembered. “How are you?”
“I’ve decided I’m old, Margot. So, considering the options, I’m just fine.” She kissed my cheek; she is the only living person who calls me Margot, my given name. “The important question of the moment, my dear, is, how are you?”
“All things considered, I’m okay.”
“That’s not what your darling daughter tells me. She says you’re a wreck waiting to happen.”
“Hah!” And not subtle. No one ever accused Mom of subtlety. “The truth? I feel like I’ve been caught in the undercarriage and dragged along.”
“Atta girl.” She patted my back firmly. “Here we are, two old widows starting anew. I cherish the prospect of spending some good time this weekend with my girl.” She glanced at Casey and Zia, who were unloading the car. “With all my girls.”
“Oh, lordy, Mom.” I took one handle of the ice chest and helped Casey carry it up the front steps. “You’re the first person to call me a widow to my face. I’m a widow. Damn.”
“It’s just language,” Mom said as she picked up the canvas bag that held Casey’s laptop and walked up the steps. She held the front door open for us. “The Widow Flint d
oes have a certain antique ring to it.”
“So, Mom.” Time for a new subject. Casey and Zia went through to the kitchen carrying the ice chest between them. “How’s your garden?”
“Hired a yardman.” She led me upstairs, where we would check on sleeping arrangements. “The garden was more your father’s interest than mine. I enjoyed working alongside him because he was always such good company, but without him it’s just hoe and prune and pinch and stoop. I love flowers in the house, but the flowers I buy at the farmer’s market are perfectly lovely.” She smiled brightly. “I’ve handed the backyard over to the neighbor boy for his 4-H project. He’s going to raise a sow.”
“In your backyard?”
“He put up a nice wire fence out where you used to have your pony.”
“That’s where your herb garden is now.” The house seemed unchanged to me, except that things looked a bit frayed around the edges. A big house for Mom to maintain, and live in, alone, I thought, and not for the first time.
“The market sells fresh herbs, and they’re perfectly lovely, too,” she said pointedly. “I had the boy pull up everything except for the rosemary hedge.”
“Pork and rosemary, a natural pairing,” I said, smiling at the logic that is particular to my mother.
“I thought so, too.” She laughed. “It’ll be nice to have some activity around the place.”
“Even if it’s a sow?”
“A sow and the boy tending it,” she said, opening the door to my old bedroom and leading the way in. I put away my bag and looked around the room as she told me about the neighbor boy and his pre-occupied professional parents.
At her core, my radical mother is remarkably traditional where children are involved. She believes they need peace, stability and the constant presence of two involved parents. I know that her true affection for Mike, even though she detested his politics, was established when she learned that he had a very fragmented childhood: alcoholic, mostly absent mother; alcoholic petty-chiseler father who ran an automobile chop shop. My mother, the universal mother, took Mike into her heart, and so had my father.
The fuss Mom had made preparing my room made me feel like a visitor. For one thing, it was far tidier than I ever had kept it. There were fresh flowers on the nightstand, a feather comforter inside a white duvet cover on the single bed, big pillows with starched cases, an Amish quilt folded at the foot; my mother’s beds always looked like clouds.
“When did that happen?” I asked, looking up at a water stain on the ceiling.
Mom followed my gaze. “During one of the storms last winter.”
“You never said anything about it.”
“Margot,” she said pointedly, “last winter you had more important issues on your hands than my leaking roof.” A reference to Mike’s illness. Last winter, there was no other issue for me than Mike.
“Did you get it fixed?” I asked.
“Hal Carter went up and did some patching,” she said, invoking the name of the old family handyman. “We need a new roof—your dad was looking into it—but the cost is just prohibitive.”
“How much?” I wanted to say, Whatever the cost you need to bite the bullet and get the roof fixed ASAP because the rainy season is due to begin very soon, but the expression on her face as she looked at the stain stopped me. Did she have money issues?
I had never thought about my parents’ finances, and they had never felt a need to share the details with me. They always lived comfortably and carefully. Dad retired with an excellent California teacher’s pension. He regularly received royalties from some patents he held that were never a fortune, but were always a steady supplement. And Mom had a little family income of her own. I assumed those income streams were infinite. And maybe I was wrong.
Mom hadn’t answered my question, How much? I made eye contact, pointed up. “Mom?”
She told me. A five-figure estimate that was more than they originally had paid for the house fifty-some years earlier.
“Do you need some help?” I asked.
“Let me think about it,” she said, and changed the subject to the rest of the guest accommodations.
We decided that the girls could share the guest room that had twin beds. It was obvious that Mom had taken some effort to make it up, polishing the wood, bringing in flowers, making the beds with lots of feather pillows and comforters and crisp linens. The en suite bathroom gleamed.
She left me in my room to freshen up. Before I went back downstairs to join the others, I peeked into the other rooms on the second floor. My parents’ friends called the old house Hotel Duchamps because there were plenty of bedrooms available to offer visiting colleagues, friends, family, friends and family of friends, and occasional graduate students. As a kid, I never knew, when I got up in the morning, who I might find waiting their turn for the big upstairs hall bathroom—old house, lots of bedrooms, not so many bathrooms—or might wander down the stairs for breakfast, or show up for dinner. But I always knew there would be great food and lively mealtime conversation. Sometimes it was chaotic, but it was never dull.
Now, as I looked from room to room, it was clear that Mom hadn’t hosted many visitors during the year since Dad died. Except for the room my Uncle Max used—it had been made ready for him—what I saw was a lot of dust, disuse, more water damage. I thought back over the last year, trying to remember when I had last been upstairs.
Mike and I had built a cottage up on the far northern coast, in the redwoods of Humboldt County. Whenever we visited the cottage, we would spend a night on the way up and another on the way home with Mom and Dad in Berkeley. But Mike had been under treatment or too sick to travel for a long time. Mike loved the cottage, and it broke his heart to stay away. It still broke my heart just thinking about going up without him.
After Dad died, Mom flew down to see us about once a month. I realized I had not been to Berkeley since my dad’s funeral fourteen months ago. I suffered daggers of guilt: Elderly mother, elderly house, had both been neglected too long?
Just like Casey, Mom had made one of those leaps when I wasn’t paying attention. Indeed, suddenly, as she had said, she was old. Clearly, she would need more help if she were going to remain in the house, and, I knew, she would fight every effort to get it for her.
The kitchen was abuzz with meal preparations when I joined the others; it smelled like Thanksgiving, turkey roasting in the oven. Mom always spent long hours planning and preparing so that her guests would see none of the effort. Stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet was the master game plan: the menu, listing who was bringing each dish, and the preparation schedule for dishes she was preparing, times that hot dishes were to go into the oven then come out, and when cold dishes were to be assembled and set on the dining room table. No football coach could have devised a game plan as complex as this meal-prep plan.
The table itself had been set the night before, the silver polished during the week, the crystal and china—Mom set her table with the remnants of various sets she had accumulated over the years, an assemblage every bit as interesting and eclectic as her guest list—made to sparkle, tablecloth and napkins starched and ironed. I noticed, on my way through the dining room, that she had sent the linens out to the laundry instead of doing them herself. A good sign.
Casey and Zia were at work filling relish trays and condiment bowls in the butler’s pantry—in the east this room between the kitchen and the back door would be called a mudroom; we certainly never had a butler. Mom handed me a bowl of risen bread dough and some muffin tins and instructed me to form the dough into cloverleaf rolls.
“Heads up, ladies.” Uncle Max came through the back door, snitching olives from Zia’s carefully arranged relish tray as he walked through the butler’s pantry. “Roosters in the henhouse.” Close behind him was a surprise visitor, my film production partner, Guido Patrini.
Max kissed Mom on the cheek. “Hope you don’t mind, Betsy—I should have called—brought you one more mouth to feed.”
/> There was an instant of hesitation before Mom gave Guido her Welcome smile. I knew from my tour of rooms upstairs that she wasn’t prepared for an additional overnight guest.
“Guido, what a wonderful surprise,” Mom said, leaning into a cheek kiss. “So nice to see you.”
I looked behind Guido, expecting to see the graduate film student we had brought onto our last project as an intern. The young woman had become Guido’s shadow, the latest in his long string of intern love interests. He taught a graduate seminar at the UCLA film school, which provided an endless source of young talent, any way you want to define that word, to work with us. Guido is handsome, a face carved from Italian marble, big brown Bambi eyes. His body is trim. But he’s a year older than I am, and his latest girlfriend was exactly half his age.
As Guido hugged me, I asked, “Where’s whatsername? I thought you two had plans for today with her parents.”
“Shasta. Her name is Shasta.” He shook his head, crestfallen. “She made other plans.”
“Poor bastard,” Max said, popping more olives into his mouth. “Called me last night after you did, Maggie. First he gets word from you that his job may be in jeopardy, then his girl dumps him. On a holiday weekend, no less; heartless cow. I told him he might as well come along with me today. He didn’t say no, so I swooped by his house on my way to the airport this morning and fetched him.”
“Good.” I gave Guido a wet smooch on his cheek, tickled him under his ribs—he says he hates being tickled, I know he loves the attention—made him smile.
Uncle Max was as round and dark as his brother Alfred, my dad, was angular and fair. But somehow there was a strong family resemblance: their voices, mannerisms, some intangible qualities rather than appearance. When I was with Max, I always felt my dad’s presence, and felt comforted.
Still chewing olives, Max wrapped me in a bear hug. Then he held me by the upper arms and looked into my face, which meant he was ready to deliver a pronouncement: “Maggie, the three of us, you and me and Guido, will put our heads together sometime this weekend, go over some of the fine print in your network contracts, and work out a strategy to get what we want out of the network bastards. If going to the mattresses becomes necessary, we’ll be armed and ready.”
The Paramour's Daughter Page 3
