Chapter 67
Kids,
I only had one request for you all. Stay the weekend. But I had asked the universe—and the ancestors—for something too. I asked them to give you what you needed. I asked them to bring you happiness. Whatever that looks like.
I don’t know how yesterday went for you, being back together.
It was only one day, after all. Is it really possible that you have all reconnected, as I so fervently wish that you would?
I never knew anyone connected like the four of you were.
You had something special. I imagine you still do. I hope you found a glimmer of it.
I’ve tried to write you all letters on your own, but ended up writing too much and then throwing them all away. Also, my mind is foggy, and I only have so much energy to speak in a cogent way. I didn’t want to send anything confusing.
Sammie stops reading for a second and we all take a moment to silently recall Guilia’s beyond-confusing letter.
She starts again:
Matt, I love you. I love our Nora. You are such an anchor, I hope you remember to take what you want as you go through life. If it doesn’t feel good, something needs to change.
Austin. You sweet thing. I’ve never met a man quite like you. I hope you remember that your outrageous athleticism was always the least interesting thing about you.
Sammie! I probably babied you too much. I never wanted you to feel a moment of pain, and sometimes I worry that it meant you felt more. I don’t want to play this card, but … please seek someone more worthy of your love. Yours is the purest, and you deserve someone who sees that.
To all of you, I hope the decision of what to do with the house isn’t too big.
I wanted to leave it to all of you in hopes that a truly balanced decision would come out of it—Matt with your reason, Austin with your easy faith in possibility, Sammie with your tender heart, and Didion with her clear-eyed practicality.
Don’t worry about me. Keep it if it will bring you the most happiness. Sell it if that will bring more. There is no wrong answer.
I love you,
Babe/Mom
Sammie is crying and chewing on her thumbnail as she reaches the end. We all read it again, silently, one at a time. Looking for hidden messages in her words. As if we wouldn’t read it again and again and have the rest of our lives to wonder.
But my heart breaks again. I am omitted, again, from my mother’s last words. But then Matt hands me another letter. This one labeled just for me.
I take it. Stare down at it for a long moment, and then nod at the others, and take it into the side porch to read it.
I unfold it with shaking hands, some part of me actually afraid there might be something terrible in here. Even though I knew she wouldn’t do that, she wasn’t that cruel.
My Didion,
I know. I want you to know that I know. I was hard on you. I put pressure on you to do things you didn’t want to, things I didn’t make Sammie do. I can see now how incredibly unfair that was.
The thing is, you have always been so much more like me than you know.
You’re smart and everyone knows you’ll do big things, but I wonder if you question whether you want to or not?
Is being capable of greatness necessarily an indication that you should grasp it?
Is greatness all so that we can be remembered how we want to be?
When you were fifteen years old, and your sister was fourteen, I tried to take my life.
I was so depressed. Your father made me feel lonelier than if I were in an empty room.
It was the weekend you spent with your grandparents.
It’s funny, the time was a turning point for me, but I wonder if you even remember it.
It was not a cry for help. I took my entire bottle of Xanax, and your father came home and rushed me to the hospital.
I’m incredibly sad for my younger self now, horrified that she intended to leave her body to be found that way, to leave you girls to wonder.
I was so unhappy. I didn’t know what to do.
Your father knew something needed to change. He asked me what would give me the greatest chance of never doing that again. I realized I needed to get away from him. He wasn’t the reason for my unhappiness, don’t get me wrong. He was kind. But he sure didn’t help.
I told my mother what happened, and she offered Birdsong to me. She told me the people there were good and that I could find a life there, if I wanted it. Instead of death, I was actually being put out to pasture—Birdsong. Mercy was my “big farm upstate.”
This is why I stepped down from full-time parenthood.
I knew your father and his life choices wouldn’t inspire much in you, but at least I couldn’t harm you.
I couldn’t be a full-time parent, risk relapsing again into my depression—if not suicide, then even just by the harm of being around my misery.
You, in particular, have always been so perceptive.
So aware of everyone in every room and what they need.
I think you would have burned out fast being with me all the time.
So what I’m trying to tell you, Didion, is that every moment of my life since the night your father found me in our bathroom has been borrowed. I wasn’t supposed to get any of this. And wouldn’t you know it—those summers with you all, I came to live for them.
I’m not telling you who or what you are anymore.
I’m only trying to tell you who I am, finally.
I tried to reroute you away from the path I’d taken, as if I could somehow save myself.
You are smarter, cooler, and kinder than I ever was.
I hope you’re happy. I’m sorry I was so incapable of keeping us all together.
I hope with all my might that you and Sammie found each other again this weekend.
In so many ways—ways I’m not clearheaded enough to list here—it is my fault that you two have fallen away from one another.
For the rest of your life, when you think of a new reason to resent me, to blame me, to be frustrated with me, or wish I’d been more for you, just know that I am sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
I know you didn’t agree with the way I chose to go. The illness has been hell, but something about my brain chemistry, too, has made life harder for me than it seems to be for other people. I feel bone-tired, my love. I’m ready to rest.
Of course, I expect that you will share as much of this as you want with the others, with Sammie.
I don’t mean to put something else on your shoulders.
You can keep it all to yourself if you want.
I thought I should say it to you alone, because you are my first daughter.
The first thing that ever happened to me that ever felt bigger than me, than my sadness.
I owed you the truth, and I hope it doesn’t burden you.
Part of me fears that’s inevitable. Wants to throw the whole letter away. But I have to risk it. I hope it’s the right thing.
I love you more than I ever told you. You are the heart of my heart.
Babe
The long letter is made longer by the ten times I reread it. It feels like the last key for her cryptic life. I understand her so completely, and so suddenly now. Of course. Of course to all of it. She says how perceptive I am, but how had I missed all of that?
“It’s not a burden,” I whisper to the letter. “I’m glad you told me.”
As I do, Migla appears from seemingly nowhere and strides over to me, across the table, and curls up in my lap.
I pet her soft, downy fur and don’t rush to rejoin the others. I need a minute, and I know they’ll let me take it.