Dawn #3
“I get that.” And I was beginning to see how I wanted that life to look. No more telling other people’s stories in chairs and vases and wallpaper. I needed to pursue my own creative projects and stop hiding behind alcohol or behind the lie that I didn’t have a problem with alcohol.
Returning my focus to Audrey, I said, “Well, I’ll be here with the glue as you put yourself back together.”
She grinned and said, “Thanks, Virg.”
I laughed. It had never occurred to me that I might be a Virgil for her just as she’d been one for me. Maybe neither of us was a guide; maybe we were just two lost souls trying to find our way to our own versions of Paradise.
Just as we were signing our checks, I saw a text from Mom pop into my phone.
I’m sorry this has taken me so long. I’m sure you are eager for answers, and I want to be able to give them all to you. You deserve them. I’ve emailed you something that explains almost everything. Call me when you’re done and we can have a long talk. I love you.
I handed Audrey my phone so she could read the text.
“Open the email already!” Audrey bounced in her seat.
Heart hammering and hand shaking, I tapped into my inbox and found the one from Mom, who had written,
My dearest Dawn,
I know you have been waiting for answers about the Vineland books, and I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get you the information you deserve—that you’ve deserved to have your whole life, in fact. But before I said anything to you, I had to contact my sister Winnie first.
She, Winnie, is the author of the Vineland books, though something tells me you have already figured this out.
I’m not sure what else you might already know, but you should know it all.
It’s a long and winding story, and amazingly, fortuitously, Winnie has written something that helps explain everything that happened to bring us to this point—and I’ve attached it to this email.
It’s a kind of journal she wrote to help her get sober from drugs and alcohol, and I’m so glad she did because now you can read it and hopefully see some of why she did what she did and why I did what I did.
Winnie does an excellent job of telling our story.
She wrote my part as well as hers, as a way to help her understand what happened between us, and also to make peace with it in her own soul.
I’m just absolutely amazed at how well she understands me as well as herself, whereas I have made far too many assumptions about her, and allowed fear to guide my actions.
Reading this, I see how profoundly I have misunderstood her—and myself—for too long.
Though she knew the events of my life from living them with me, and later from magazine articles about the vineyard, and Bernard, who reported to her over the years, she made a number of guesses about how I might have been feeling in certain moments, and I promise you she captured my thoughts and emotions with startling accuracy.
I felt such relief at being seen by my sister in this way.
It was also a profound reminder of how close we had once been, of how much of ourselves we had shared with each other.
Through it all, she knew me. Better, in some ways, than I knew myself, for I can see some of my actions anew in these pages.
I am so grateful to her for her compassion.
Winnie has always been an extraordinary writer, and even though the world knows that now because of Vineland, I think you’ll see why even more clearly when you read this remarkable journal that she wrote for no one other than herself, but is such a gift to me now—and to you, too, I hope.
I read it for the first time yesterday, and as soon as I send this email, I’m going to read it again.
Call me anytime as you’re reading, or after. This is a lot to absorb. You are sure to have many questions.
I’m so deeply sorry for keeping all of this from you. I love you more than anything in the world.
Mom
Below Mom’s message to me, I saw two attachments forwarded from whartley@ two whole days ago! In her email, all Winnie had written was
This is the journal I was talking about. Maybe it could help Dawn understand? And maybe you remember the picture—if you don’t, my pages will remind you.
The first attachment was a scan of a picture, clearly drawn in crayon by a child, of a sun shining over a garden with pink flowers.
The second was a Word document. Before I opened it, I googled “Mendocino Books,” and a large bookstore facing the dramatic northern California coastline filled my screen.
Winnie was not listed among the staff, and as curious as I was about why her email address was from this store, I was much more curious about what was in the Word doc.
Blood thudded in my ears as I opened the attachment and read the first lines of Winnie’s journal.
June 1967
Miraculously, Miranda agreed to come down from Napa and join me for the Magic Mountain Festival in Marin on June 10 and 11, the huge concert kickoff to what everyone was calling the Summer of Love…