60
My father brought my mother home to my house. Michael wound up calling his parents and staying for dinner, which was not the formal affair I had pictured, but instead the six of us pretending not to notice that the brisket hadn’t been properly reheated.
After dinner, I went up with the kids to put them to bed—they’d had baths that morning and honestly, after the excitement of the day, I was too exhausted to make them do more than wash their hands and faces.
I assumed Michael would leave, but he was sitting in the living room with my parents when I came back down, a drink in front of each of them. My parents looked awfully cozy on the sofa, so I sank into the chair next to Michael’s. “Got one of those for me?” I asked.
Michael got up, poured a fourth drink, and brought it back to me. My parents hadn’t budged, and I noticed they were holding hands. I took a long drink, welcoming the burn because I knew it would provide some release from the day’s stress.
“What are we talking about?” I asked.
“Your mother’s right hook,” Michael said with a smile.
“No,” she said. “We were talking about Michael’s college graduation.”
I smiled at him. My father had to have loved hearing that. “Back to that right hook though.” I turned to my mother. “What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t,” she admitted. “But I did tell you he deserved a swift punch in the nose.”
“Yes, but I didn’t think you’d actually do it. What if you’d broken a nail?”
My father laughed. “Millie the Magnificent never breaks a nail. She’s got excellent form.” And my mother leaned her head on his shoulder and giggled .
“You’ve clearly had enough,” I said, reaching for her nearly empty glass and moving it away from her on the coffee table. “And Millie the Magnificent? Huh?”
“She’s already seen you in a jail cell,” Papa said. “You might as well tell her.”
“Tell me what ?”
My mother snuggled in closer to my father. “That’s how we met.”
“You punched Papa?”
“No.”
“I’m extremely lost here.”
“I was dating an older man,” she said, then held up a hand. “No names. But you’ve heard of him.”
“You can tell her,” my father said. “He died a couple of years ago now.” She gave him a look, and he shut his mouth.
“Anyway, he was quite famous—not as famous as he would be, but a well-known person. My family didn’t approve, obviously. Show people and all. And he wasn’t Jewish. And was divorced. Well, he left town for a bit for work, and when he came back, he had married someone else. And he thought that didn’t matter and that we’d continue on as we had been—she was out in Hollywood, and he was fine having me on the side in New York. He grabbed my arm and tried to kiss me when I said I wasn’t that kind of girl, so I hit him.”
I looked at her, wondering what was in that drink I’d just had. And also wondering who it was. “And you met Papa—?”
“Well, I got arrested, and my parents shipped me off to my aunt Ada for the summer. She was none too pleased with the idea of having to go back and forth to New York to meet with a lawyer, so she found one whose family was also in New Jersey for the summer.”
I looked at Papa. “You—you were her lawyer?”
“I was,” he said. “She was a firecracker.” He kissed the top of her head. “Still is apparently.”
“Pow!” she said, holding up a fist.
“I—this is a joke, right?”
“No joke,” she said. “You wanted to know.”
“What year was this?”
She thought for a second. “It was 1931.”
Four years before I was born, and I was born in their third year of marriage. But who were the actors back then?
“Well, you have to tell me who it was.”
She giggled again. “Frankly, my dear, I do not.”
My eyes widened. “No. You dated Clark Gable?”
“More like dodged a bullet,” she said. “Five marriages? No thank you.”
I looked at Michael, whose eyebrows were practically at his hairline. “I got into a car accident, and I’m in a coma, right? None of this actually happened.”
“Call your aunt Rose if you don’t believe me,” my mother said mildly. Then she stood up, still holding my father’s hand. “Come on, Bernie. Let’s go home.”
And the two of them walked out together.
I looked at Michael. “I think I need another drink.”
“It’s been ... quite a day. But I shouldn’t. I need to drive home.”
I began to tell him to stay. It wouldn’t matter for the divorce, and Larry had called off his PI. “You should—”
“Mama,” a small voice said from the doorway. “I had a bad deam. I seep in your bed?”
I groaned quietly, and Michael stood up. “I should go,” he said.
“Yeah.” I sighed.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I smiled at him, then gestured for Debbie to come sit on my lap as he left. “Come here, honey.” She crawled onto my lap, her thumb in her mouth. “You know you can’t keep sleeping in my bed, right?”
“Pease, Mama? Just tonight?”
I kissed the top of her head. “Just tonight,” I said, picking her up to bring her to my room.
Clark Gable could have been my father, I thought as I got in bed beside her. And somehow that wasn’t the craziest part of the day.