Rebeccalou: This Writer’s Life

This past March and into April, I worked on a piece about two of our kids, and their mother. I’d skimmed the surface of this story a half dozen times, wading up to my ankles in muck but never honestly taking it on. And then something happens and I find myself diving into a tale of addiction, abandonment and pain. This time I bite. I taste, chew and swallow. When the whole thing feels more heavy and deep than I want to go, I write anyway.

Weeks of work unfold and one day I’m ready for Tony to read my account of a story more his than mine: alcoholic spouse drives drunk with their 10-month-old daughter in the car. Nothing happens, but Tony’s image of what might have been snaps the frail marriage in two. The what if drives the last bit of fear out of him and sets him free, in a twisted kind of way, to make his move. A ten-year string of incidents, one more shameful and surreal than the next, and he’d had enough. Loyal by nature, protective to the core, he stops believing that life with a drug-addicted alcoholic would ever be anything other than the anxiety-ridden nightmare it had become. He takes the kids and leaves. Tess is a year old, barely, Pierce almost four. 

But facts are just the beginning. 

How does a mother’s physical and emotional abandonment smell? 

How does it taste in the mouth of a son? 

What shape does it acquire in a daughter? 

Does abandonment pound into eternity at the walls of the heart or simply leave a scar? 

How thick is the scab? 

What if there is no scab and the wound, a dozen years later, is still open and bleeding? 

Then what?

So I write the story to try to figure things out. I’d like to make sense of behavior that, on the surface, makes no sense. I look for openings, in myself and in them, and conversely, for the places I shut down and they the same. I tell stories. I reveal things. I describe the way their mother looked and behaved when they saw her in March after fifteen months of not so much as a phone call. I share what they tell me about her. I write of pain and hurt, of anger, resentment and longing, and yes, of love. None of it is easy. All of it counts. 

On a Thursday night I go to Tess’s school to work concessions for a theatre production. A friend and I talk about our kids. She says she’d like to meet my other two. “I kind of feel like I know them already,” she says, “from reading your blog.”

Bingo. I leave the school with a rumbling in my gut, fueled by fear. Once home, I walk the stairs to my study and print the piece, hand it to Tony. A bowl of popcorn sits on the bed between us. 

“I can’t publish this.” 

“What?! You’ve been working on it for a month.” 

“It’s too revealing. There’s stuff in here that could hurt the kids.”

I believed the piece had value, that it told the story fairly and tenderly, without judgment. I believed it contained information that could be healing for others. Together we read it again, this time thinking about classmates hearing the details, about well-intentioned parents saying something to their kids. In the re-telling I imagine the story growing legs and sprouting the head of a monster. All compassion is lost and one day someone in the mood to hurt says something and with it comes the sting of shame, of privacy betrayed, honor destroyed. And I have played a part in it? No way. 

There are moments in the life of a stepparent when you realize—more like caught by surprise—that these kids who walked through the door and rearranged your life have claimed your heart. Indeed, Tess and Pierce have settled in, not just in the house or in the rhythm of my days but in me, in the fiber and sinew, the grit and muscle of who I am. I watch myself protect them with the intensity I mistakenly thought I had reserved solely for the child I’d raised since infancy. Along with their father, they have become mine to look after, to nurture, to usher into adulthood, despite the debris left in the emotional wake of their earliest years and with all the joy and excitement that comes in watching young people grow into themselves.

There is one catch. I really wanted to publish that piece. The story had a pulse. I felt like its time had come. Love changed my mind, love and that gnawing sensation that taking their life public could harm two innocents who have been through enough. 

I am going to share one paragraph—the ending. It’s the happiest part of the story:

On a Sunday in March, Tony and I take the kids to the tubing hill at Winter Park. The day is glorious, not a wisp of cloud in that big blue sky. After a handful of runs, we decide to go down as a group, four on the belly. We position the tubes in a circle, sides touching, each of us front body down, legs extended, a hand wrapped through the handle of the tube next to our own. Our faces are inches apart. With the toes of our boots digging into the snow, we push ourselves over the edge and take off down the slope, hair flying, faces smacked by the wind, screaming, laughing, spinning in wide circles all the way down to the base of the hill. The terrain flattens and we cruise to a standstill in the open, snow-packed field. The four of us took another fifteen runs that day, shedding coats and gloves as the sun arced high above the peaks. In pairs, individually, sitting or supine, no run was as gratifying—or as fun—as four on the belly. No one jumped off early, no one let go, determined to stay connected, no matter what.

I’ve been working on this piece for a month. The writing has felt like hugging jello—impossible to contain, with goo oozing in every direction. The topic is blended families. Not exactly my field of expertise, although I do have a few observations to make on the subject, like maybe a book’s worth.

Our blended family just passed the five-year mark. In the annals of family dynamics, I’m told that five years is a benchmark; it typically takes at least that long before a blended family starts to feel and function like a whole. What started me thinking about them—about us—is the photo at the top of the page, taken in November 2003. On the day before Thanksgiving, Katy captured our imperfect lives at a time when they had turned perfect. A man raising his two children, resigned to life without a partner, falls in love with a woman who figures she and her daughter are a bigger package than most men want. Tony and I were neither young nor foolish. We knew life would change, just not how or to what degree. We chalked up any oh-my-god-how-will-this-work trepidation to the excitement of a new adventure, and rode into the future atop a thirty-foot wave of happiness, lighthearted and beaming. 

We’re in Santa Fe for our wedding. Tony has walked to the plaza to replace the shirts he left in Denver. Pierce is the first to ask when Dad will be back. 

“Soon,” I say. “He’s already been gone an hour. He’ll be home soon.”

Twenty minutes later I hear Tess drag a chair through the kitchen, headed toward the back door. I watch her lift the semi-sheer curtain away from the glass and carefully position the chair to face the door. When she has it where she wants it, she sits. From across the room I feel her willing her dad to return. She says nothing but hums a kind of mantra. She wants him home. Outside, clumps of daffodil are blooming in the garden. Light rain taps at the window. As dusk settles, the child looks smaller and somehow fragile in the shadow of the curtain. She shifts in the chair, lifts her feet off the crossbar and folds her legs Indian style, resting her chin in her right hand. 

At last she speaks. “Becky, when will Daddy be home?” 

“Soon, honey, I think soon. He’s fine. Come over here. Let’s play 21.”

I shuffle the cards, hoping for distraction. She considers my proposal; leaving her post might delay his arrival. I pat my thigh as if beckoning a puppy. She hops down and joins me. With one arm around her and the other on the table, I shuffle the deck one last time. Midway through the second game, she hears the door open.

“Daddy!”

Exchanging marital vows or sitting for a portrait is an act to signify a shift in status but the real work takes its own sweet time. The process of making two families feel like one is largely an ongoing act of faith, kinda like commandeering the little engine that could, chanting I think I can, I think I can. Essential to the mix are grit and muscle, bone, blood and heart, good humor and luck. Trust is an issue. So is sharing. Possessions that once were yours, as well as parents, time and space, take on a communal quality. Like all things worth having, you need to want it—even when you don’t. 

I’m up against deadlines for three clients. Ali’s attendant arrives thirty minutes late on a Tuesday to announce that she’s quitting. Pierce turns 12 and a switch is flipped; words are exchanged for grunts and his straight A’s turn into the rainbow coalition. Every letter is represented. Tess is equipped with radar; she appears as if on cue to foil every attempt at private conversation between husband and wife. Ali is choosing to spend more and more time in her room behind a closed door. The cleaning lady quits via voicemail the morning she’s scheduled to turn this place around and Max, our cocker spaniel, has taken to lifting his leg in the house now that Tony has usurped him as top dog. I’m in over my head.

Like the firstborn who tells her parents it’s time to bring the new baby back to the hospital, the immensity of what we have undertaken is slowly revealed. Reality settles in, one load of laundry, one jealous outburst at a time. While friends are sending kids off to college, escaping to the mountains, awaiting the arrival of a first grandchild or even taking up traveling as a new career—not that I think about or even notice these things—I welcome two youngsters into my fold, round the clock, 24/7. One day the house is quiet; the next it isn’t, and won’t be for a long time. Peacefulness is trumped by talking, squealing, running, arguing and giggling. I find candy wrappers buried under pillows, trip over backpacks and legos, and share my airspace with a boy and girl who vie for their father’s attention with renewed vigor, for now there are three competitors: the sibling, the woman their father has married and the daughter who requires extra help and attention. We witness sibling rivalry on steroids. Daily.

In my dream I carry a baby girl on my shoulders, a toddler with blond hair and eyes the color of my own. She is light as a feather. My hands wrap around her tiny fists to balance the bouncing body. We’re both laughing. I look up and see that the child is Tess at an age when I didn’t even know she was in the world. I imagine writing a book. I call it The Missing Years.

My adopted child arrived from Korea two days shy of five months, not exactly the beginning but close. I acquired my other two through marriage. At eight and eleven, habits were formed. Routines were in place. Their way of being in the world had taken hold. Like the child on the chair between the curtain and the glass, I watched and waited, unprepared to make a move without a working knowledge of where they had been. I had no memory of first tooth, first word, first day of school. I did not know the color or scent of their favorite blanket or stuffed animal. They had not hidden behind my pant leg in a room full of strangers or climbed to the top of the refrigerator in my kitchen. I was not imprinted with their baby scent or the sound of their giggle. Memories provide context. They’re a framework to lean on when a fist goes through a wall or a squeal reaches ear-splitting decibels. Without the foundation of the early years, what follows can feel groundless, like falling in love or stepping into quicksand. You feel left out of some irreplaceable magic that happened while you were away. You build your new house starting with the third story. You pray that the support beams are strong enough to sustain the structure until you’ve filled in the lower levels with materials not indigenous to the original house. In a reflective moment, you wonder how things would have played had you started where most people start: at the beginning. 

We sit around the table on Christmas Eve, guessing about the presents under the tree. “I wonder if I’ll get Barefoot’s new cookbook” I say. The kids shoot fast glances at one another. Ali turns the sound off on her talker and types something only Tony, sitting next to her, can read. 

Two days later Pierce opens the car door and sets a present on my lap. I take off the paper and there it is, the latest Back to Basics cookbook from Barefoot Contessa. “Merry Christmas,” he says from the back seat. “I bought it with the Barnes and Noble gift card Dad’s client gave me.”

What am I to my husband’s children? It’s a fair question from the woman who parents but isn’t the Parent, who is mom but not Mother. For three years I asked the question of Tony on a regular basis. I was looking for some kind of validation, some assurance that this drastic shift in my life had a payoff. Without an answer that satisfied or one I was ready to believe, I kept on doing what mothers do: pick them up from school, take them to voice lessons, to Blockbuster, to the homes of their friends, remind them that elbows belong off the table and all four chair legs on the floor, cook dinner, take them shopping, ask about school, go on bike rides, write checks, bake peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, attend their performances, give them money, tell them I love them. To my relief, the question no longer matters. I let it go; it’s theirs to answer, not mine. I know I am not the Mother. I also know I am the woman they see every day, the woman they have learned they can count on, a steady albeit too often tired presence in their lives. To them I am Becky, unless they’re on the phone with a friend. “Hang on,” I hear them say. “I need to ask my mom,” and they turn to me. 

I sit in front of the fire with the Sunday New York Times. Ali is on the laptop in her room. Tony and the kids have gone to dinner with friends. Halfway through the Book Review, I hear the key in the front door. The dogs start barking. Squealing and roughhousing follow. The silence is broken. I hear Tony talking about the afternoon but my attention is on the once pervasive quality of Quiet that has all but vanished from this home, and the new sounds that have taken its place. 

When Tony runs an errand, the children no longer wait at the window for his return. On occasion Pierce still asks when his dad will be home, but now the question is code for When Will Dinner Be Ready. The five of us have found a rhythm, set down roots. We’re building a collective memory and quietly preserving the years before we knew one another. Daily we bear witness to one another’s lives. We have survived a home remodel, middle school, buying a business, a house burglary. We’ve been together, for better and, trust me, for worse, in restaurants and in bowling alleys, on scooters and bicycles, at movies, plays and performances, on beaches, mountains and hiking trails, in cars and buses, on trains, boats and airplanes. We’ve said goodbye to one another hundreds of times—and learned that we always come back. I’ll give a nod to the experts. Five years later, we’ve rounded a bend.

I love black tea with milk, the cherry almond scones at Adagio and buttercup squash, quartered, rubbed with sea salt and olive oil, and roasted on the grill. I love solitude and quiet, fresh air any day of the year, the tinge of lavender on my husband’s eyelids, the belly roar of his laugh. I love the courage of one daughter and the confidence of the other. I love the kindness in the heart of our son yet this love can feel like homework from a wise teacher who has handed back my paper a half-dozen times, always with the same instruction: This isn’t your best work; try again.

Love would be easier if our boy would keep his fingers out of the candle wax, keep his size tens under his own chair and away from his sister, if he could ask when dinner will be ready without thundering up the stairs and swinging the door on its hinges until the wood slips from his hand and crashes into the wall. Love would bubble up more freely if dirty socks weren’t strewn from bottom step to bedroom like crumbs on Hansel and Gretel’s trail, if wet towels and T-shirts were tossed in the laundry basket and not dropped at his feet, if his insatiable hunger for video games didn’t look and smell like addiction, if anger hadn’t propelled his fist through plaster. 

Before I leave for a 3-day retreat, I go first to Ali’s room where I must ask for a hug, not once but twice. She reluctantly drops the cellphone into her lap and cradles my neck with her left arm, adding a melodious coo at my right ear. I turn the corner to see Tess, half-running, arms open, face radiant. We smack once on the lips and connect in an easy embrace. I kiss the top of her head, sniff her damp hair. Pierce watches, hyper alert, fidgety hands in the pockets of his jeans, waiting for me to make the first move. 

I reach for his shoulders as he wraps his lanky limbs across my back and breaks into a smile. I feel his muscles let go, his chest relax, two lean and strong bodies who now fit in the same way I slip into the form of his father. At sixteen and forty-seven, these males stand head to head, the boy fifty pounds lighter, less sure of himself, more wounded, needy and afraid, the boy who breaks my soft heart. Did I hug them in the order of my love, these three mice I am raising? I mother them blindly and ferociously, one day sure-footed and the next floundering through the brave act of nurturing a blended trio, none of whom came from my womb yet each calling my name from across the globe, from across the room. Be mine, they say, over and over, like a valentine with a big red heart that shouts Open Me First.

Photo by Katy Tartakoff, May 23, 2008