by Sarah Lotz
I couldn’t step outside the door without a camera in my face: ‘How do you feel?’ ‘Did you sense he was alive all along?’ They wanted to know how Bobby was feeling, how he was coping, what he was eating, if I was religious, when he was coming home, if I was going to fly down and see him. They offered me money. Lots of money, begged me for photographs of him and Lori. I don’t know where they got that one of him on his first day at school; I suspect it was from Mona. I never came out and accused her of it, but where else would they have got it? And don’t get me started on the advertising and movie people from Hollywood! They wanted to buy the rights to Bobby’s life story. He was only six! But money was the last thing I was thinking about then. We were told there would be insurance even though Maiden Air went bankrupt almost immediately. Lori wasn’t badly off, but she wasn’t rich. She’d earmarked all her savings for me and Reuben, for a place in Florida. But we wouldn’t need that now, would we?
In truth, not all of the attention was poisonous. People left gifts, sent letters. Some were heartbreaking, especially the ones from people who had lost children themselves. I had to stop reading those letters in the end. They really did break my heart, and my heart couldn’t take much more.
Reuben’s sister, who had never once offered to fly down to help care for him before this, called three or four times a day, asking me what I was going to do about shiva for Lori. But how could I think about that with Bobby down in Miami? I was almost thankful most of the planes were grounded and she couldn’t come and poke her nose in. Betsy, bless her, took care of the food in those first days. There were people in and out all the time–Charmaine helped with that, making sure they weren’t reporters in disguise. People from the neighbourhood who’d heard about Lori. Reuben’s old students from the adult literacy centre. Lori’s friends and colleagues. All kinds of people. Blacks and Latinos and Jews, all sorts. All of them offering to help.
Betsy even got in touch with her Rabbi who offered his services for a memorial service, even though he knew we were secular. A funeral was out of the question until they released the body… but I don’t want to dwell on that. That day… when we put her to rest… I can’t, Elspeth.
One night, it had to be two days after we heard about Bobby, Reuben and I were alone in the apartment. I sat down on the bed, and felt such a wave of despair and loneliness I actually wanted to die. I can’t describe it, Elspeth. It was all too much. I had to be strong for Bobby, I knew that, but I wasn’t sure if I had it in me. I don’t know if somehow, the force of my pain gave Reuben the strength to push Al away for a few seconds, but he reached over and took my hand. He squeezed it. I looked into his eyes, and for a second, I saw Reuben, the old Reuben, my best friend, and it was as if he was saying, ‘Come on, Lily, don’t give up.’ Then that expressionless mask–Al–fell back into place and he was gone.
But it gave me the strength to go on.
Charmaine knew how guilty I felt about not being with Bobby, and she put me in touch with his psychologist down in Miami–Dr Pankowski. She helped a lot, said it wouldn’t be long before he could come home. She said his MRI was clear and he’d started talking, wasn’t saying much, but seemed to understand what had happened to him.
When we got the news that he could come home, I got a visit from the mayor’s aide, a nice young man, African-American. ‘Bobby’s a miracle child, Mrs Small,’ he said. ‘And here in New York we look after our own.’ He offered to post a policeman outside my building when the press attention got too much and even sent a limousine to take me to JFK.
Charmaine came with me to the airport while Betsy and one of the carers they’d sent stayed to help with Reuben. I was as nervous as I was on my wedding day!
Bobby was arriving on a special charter plane, in an area of the airport where the politicians and important people usually flew into, which meant that for once, the reporters wouldn’t be hounding us. They gave me a seat in the waiting area, and I could feel all the staff trying not to stare at me. I hadn’t bothered with my appearance for the last few days, and I was feeling self-conscious. Charmaine held my hand all the while. I don’t know what I would have done without her. She still keeps in touch.
The day was cold and crisp, but with one of those clear blue skies, and Charmaine and I stood up to watch the plane landing. It seemed to take forever before they opened the doors. And then I saw him climbing down the stairs, holding tightly to a young woman’s hand. Dr Pankowski had travelled with him, bless her. She looked too young to be a doctor, but I’ll always be grateful to her for what she did for him. They’d given him new clothes so he was wrapped up all warm, his hood hiding his face.
I took a step towards him. ‘Bobby,’ I said. ‘It’s me. It’s Bubbe.’
He looked up at me and whispered, ‘Bubbe?’ Elspeth, I wept. Of course I did. I kept touching him, stroking his face, making sure he really was there.
And when I took him into my arms it was as if the lights flicked back on inside me. I can’t explain it better than that, Elspeth. You see, I knew, right then, whatever had happened to my Lori, whatever had happened to Reuben, that now I had Bobby back with me, everything was going to be just fine.
Lori Small’s best friend Mona Gladwell agreed to talk to me via Skype in late April 2012.
Look, Lori was my friend, my best friend, and I don’t want to sound like I’m trashing her, but I reckon it’s important people know the truth about her and Bobby. Don’t get me wrong, Lori was special, did a lot for me, but she could be… she could be a bit flaky sometimes.
Lori and I met in high school. My folks moved to Flemington, New Jersey from Queens when I was fifteen, and me and Lori hit it off straight away. On the surface, Lori was your typical good girl. Good grades, polite, never got into trouble. But she had this whole secret life her folks never knew about. Smoked pot, drank, messed around with boys; usual kids’ stuff. Reuben was teaching American history at the school at the time, and Lori was careful to protect his rep. Reuben was cool. None of the kids at school ripped into him. He was just Mr Small, not wildly popular, but he had a way of telling a story. Quiet. A dignity about him, I guess. He was smart, too. But if he knew Lori was out drinking and screwing around behind his back, he never let on.
As for Lillian… I know she never liked me, blamed what happened to Lori at college on me, but she was okay. But then compared to my folks, pretty much anyone is. Lillian never worked, seemed happy being a homemaker–kept busy sewing and cooking or whatever–and Reuben made just enough for them to live on. Apart from their politics–they were way more liberal than you’d think, looking at them–it was kind of like they were still living in the 1950s.
After graduation, Lori and I both decided to apply to NYU–Lillian wasn’t happy about that, although NYC is only an hour or so from Flemington. Didn’t take long for Lori to get into the party scene, start doing heavy drugs, coke mainly. We had this whole system for when she knew her folks were coming to visit; we’d clear up the room we shared, she’d cover up her tattoos, make sure there was no evidence on show, but she got to a point where she couldn’t hide it any more. Lillian flipped out, insisted that Lori come home with her and Reuben, so Lori ended up dropping out. After she got clean, she came back to the city and tried a million different careers: yoga instructor, personal stylist, manicurist, bartender. That’s where I met my first husband, at one of the bars she worked in. It didn’t last. Neither the job nor the husband.
Then, out of nowhere Lori applied for this fashion design course–convinced Reuben and Lillian to pay for it, though I don’t know where they found the cash. I thought it was just another flaky move, but turned out she was good at it–hats especially, which became her thing. She started getting commissions, moved to Brooklyn where she could afford to set up her own studio. She designed a hat for my second wedding, refused to charge me for it, even though she was just starting out.
It was just after she did that Galliano show that she found out she was pregnant. ‘I’m keeping this one,’ she
said. ‘The big four-oh is coming up and I might not get another chance.’ Wouldn’t say who the father was, so I suspected she’d done it on purpose. I’m not saying she slept around, but she liked to have a good time. Didn’t see the point of being in a relationship.
She concocted this whole crazy story about being artificially inseminated so that Lillian wouldn’t freak out. I couldn’t believe she was going to go through with it–it didn’t seem right. But she said it was easier that way. After that preacher was going on about Bobby not being born of man–that he was unnatural and all that stuff–I could have said something, told the truth, but I thought it would all die down. Who could take that seriously?
When she was pregnant, Lori went through this whole religious stage, talked about sending Bobby to Cheder classes when he was old enough, shul, the whole shebang. Jewish mother syndrome, she said. It didn’t last. I’d thought she’d freak when Lillian and Reuben decided to move to Brooklyn, but in actual fact she was pleased. ‘It might not be a bad idea, Mona.’ And yeah, before Reuben got sick, having Lillian on tap did make it easier. Specially when Bobby was a baby. It all backfired when Reuben got really bad and Lori had to be the supportive one. She was good at it, though. In a way, it made her grow up. I admired her for stepping up to the plate like that. Still… sometimes I wonder if she wanted Lillian and Reuben to move down to Florida so that they’d be out of her hair, although that makes me sound like a prize bitch, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t have blamed her. She had a lot to deal with.
And Bobby… I don’t like to say it, but I swear to God he was a different kid after the crash. I know, I know, it could’ve just been PTSD or shock or whatever. But before it happened… when he was small… look, there’s no other way to say it. He was the toddler from hell, threw a tantrum about a million times a day. I called him Damien after that kid in the movie, which made Lori mad. Lillian didn’t see the half of it–Bobby behaved like a little angel whenever he was with her, I guess because she let him have his way all the time. And Reuben started getting sick when Bobby was two or so, so she wasn’t around him all that much. Lori also spoiled him rotten, gave him whatever he wanted, though I told her the only person she was hurting was him. I’m not saying she was a bad mother. She wasn’t. She loved him, and that’s all they need, right? Although the truth of it was, I couldn’t tell if he was spoiled or just what my mother would call a bad seed.
Lori hoped he’d settle down when he started at school. One of those arty Magnet schools had just opened up in the neighbourhood and she decided to enrol him there. It didn’t help. Within days of him starting there she was called in to talk about his ‘difficulties integrating’, or whatever bullshit way they described it.
This one time, when Bobby was four or so, Lori had this big client she had to see. She was stuck for a babysitter and as Lillian was taking Reuben to be assessed by a new doctor, Lori asked me to babysit. I was living in an apartment in Carroll Gardens at the time, and my then-fiancé had bought me a kitten, cute little thing, we named her Sausage. Anyway, I left Bobby in front of the television while I had a shower, and as I was drying my hair I heard this high-pitched screaming sound coming from the kitchen. I swear, I never knew animals could scream like that. Bobby was holding Sausage by her tail and swinging her from side to side. He had this look on his face that said, ‘Jeez, this is fun.’ I’m not ashamed to say that I whacked him; he fell and knocked his forehead against the kitchen counter. Bled like anything. I had to rush him to the emergency room to get stitches. But he didn’t cry. Didn’t even flinch. Lori and I fell out over that for a while, but it didn’t last long, we had too much history. Last time she asked me to babysit though.
Then after the crash… it was like he was a whole new person.
From chapter three of Guarding JESS: My Life With One of The Three by Paul Craddock (co-written with Mandi Solomon).
The press attention after Jess was medivacced to the UK was like nothing I could have imagined. The three ‘miracle children’ were fast becoming the story of the decade, and the UK public’s thirst for news on Jess’s condition was unquenchable. Paparazzi and tabloid hacks had taken up permanent residence on the steps of my apartment building, and the hospital was practically under siege. Gerry warned me not to say anything too personal on my cellphone, just in case it was being hacked.
I will say that the public support Jess received was overwhelming. The gifts from well-wishers soon filled Jess’s room; others left messages, flowers, cards and legions of soft toys outside the hospital–there were so many that you could barely see the railings that ringed the grounds. People were kind. It was their way of showing they cared.
Meanwhile, my relationship with Marilyn and the rest of the Addams Family was deteriorating daily. I couldn’t avoid encountering them in the waiting room, and side-stepping Marilyn’s demands for me to hand over the keys to Stephen and Shelly’s house was becoming unendurable. But the real cold war didn’t start in earnest until January 22nd when I overheard Jase haranguing one of Jess’s specialists outside her room. She still hadn’t woken up at that stage, but her doctors had assured us that there was no sign of impaired cognitive functioning.
‘Why the fuck can’t you wake her up?’ Jase was saying, while jabbing a nicotine-stained finger into the poor doctor’s chest. The doctor assured him they were doing everything they could.
‘Yeah?’ Jase sneered. ‘Well, if she ends up being a fucking vegetable, you lot can fucking well look after her then.’
That was the last straw. As far as I was concerned the Addamses had shown their true colours. I couldn’t stop them visiting Jess, but I could let it be known that under no circumstances were they going to take care of her once she was discharged. I contacted Shelly’s solicitor straight away and instructed her to inform the Addamses of Shelly and Stephen’s custody arrangements.
A day later, there they were on the front page of the Sun. ‘Jess’s Gran Cut Out Of Her Life.’
Fair play to the photographer, he’d caught them in all their thuggish glory, Ma Addams glaring into shot, the brothers and various offspring scowling around her like an advert promoting the benefits of birth control. Marilyn especially wasn’t shy about letting her views be known:
‘It’s not right,’ Marilyn (58) says. ‘Paul’s lifestyle, it’s not moral. He’s a gay and we’re upstanding citizens. A family. Jess would be better off with us.’
The Sun didn’t miss a trick of course. They’d got their hands on a photograph of me taken during last year’s gay pride parade, dressed in a tutu and laughing with my then-partner, Jackson. This was displayed in a full colour spread opposite the Addamses’ mug shots.
The story spread like wildfire and it wasn’t long before the other tabloids managed to procure similarly compromising photographs of me–no doubt courtesy of my friends or ex-friends. I suppose I couldn’t blame them for cashing in. Most were struggling artists themselves.
But the tide really turned against me when Marilyn and I were invited to appear on the Roger Clydesdale show. Gerry warned me not to go on it, but I could hardly let Marilyn have her say unchallenged, could I? I’d met Roger at a media launch a few years before, and on the few occasions I’d caught his morning ‘current affairs’ show, he’d been rather harsh on what he called benefits scroungers. I suppose I naively assumed he’d be on my side.
The atmosphere inside the studio was electric with anticipation; you could tell that the audience was gagging for a showdown. They weren’t disappointed. At first, I’ll be honest, I thought it was going my way. Marilyn slumped on the studio couch, mumbling inarticulate answers to Roger’s trademark, ‘Why aren’t you actively looking for a job?’ questions. Then he turned his gimlet eye on me.
‘Do you have any experience dealing with children, Paul?’
I told him that I’d been looking after Jess and Polly since they were babies and reiterated that Stephen and Shelly had chosen me as Jess’s guardian.
‘He just wants the house! He’s an acto
r! He doesn’t care about that kid!’ Marilyn squealed, for some reason getting a round of applause from the audience. Roger paused for several seconds to let the furore die down, and then he dropped his bombshell. ‘Paul… Is it true you have a history of mental illness?’
The audience erupted again, and even Marilyn looked a bit thrown.
I wasn’t prepared for the question. I stuttered and stammered and did an appalling job of explaining that my breakdown was a thing of the past.
Of course, this revelation spawned countless screaming headlines along the lines of: ‘Nutter to take care of Jess.’
I was devastated, of course. No one likes to see things like that written about them, and I only had myself to blame for being too open. I’ve been harshly criticised for how I dealt with the press after that. Among other things I’ve been called a publicity whore and an ‘alleged egomaniac and narcissist’. But whatever the press chose to say about me, I had Jess’s best interests at heart. I’d put my career on hold for the foreseeable future in order to devote all my time to her. Quite frankly, if I was interested in exploiting her for monetary gain, I could have made millions. Not that money would be an issue, Shelly and Stephen’s life policies were fully paid-up and there was the compensation that I was intending to put into trust for Jess. She would always be looked after. The reason I appeared on the various morning shows was nothing to do with money and everything to do with setting the record straight. Anyone else would have done the same.
As you can see, I had a lot on my plate, but Jess was my priority. She was still unresponsive, but apart from her burn injuries, physically she was doing well. I needed to start thinking about what to do about her living arrangements.
Dr Kasabian, who was pipped to be Jess’s psychologist when she eventually woke up and started talking, suggested that it might be best for her to be in familiar surroundings, which meant moving into Stephen’s house in Chiselhurst.
