My mother’s death improved our sex life. It was great before she died but not as frequent. As long as my skin was touching Roger’s, I wasn’t lonely or scared, so I chased him around the house, grabbing his belt, tugging his shirt and begging “Let’s do it again, let’s do it again.” Let’s do it until we’re crippled and then I’ll cry while you’re sleeping and you won’t have to see my pain.
I think all the sex made Roger crazy, crazy enough to blurt out a marriage proposal while he was climaxing. I was also nuts, nuts about Roger and terrified enough to say yes and plan a wedding before he had time to change his mind.
I hoped the wedding plans would take my mind off my mother, but it didn't. It was another special event she would miss, like my recent graduation from UC Berkeley. She was supposed to arrive the day before the graduation ceremony, then after I walked the stage and received my degree, we were dumping her husband, my step-father, at the San Francisco Airport and continuing west to Highway 1 for a week of sightseeing and girl talk.
During our last phone call, Mom said, “Barry isn’t happy about our plans. He doesn't want to fly home alone.”
“Please don’t tell me you’ve invited him.”
"I didn't."
"You're going back with him?"
My mother sighed. “Sam, I’ve never been out of Massachusetts. I’ve never been on an airplane, seen a redwood or eaten sourdough. I want to do those things before I die.”
I whistled my relief into the receiver. "Thank you for not bailing." After being diagnosed with diabetes, the type that required a daily shot of insulin to the thigh, Mom fell into a depression and used diabetes as an excuse to stay locked in her hometown of Barrington. I called constantly to reassure her that diabetes wasn't a death sentence. I knew plenty of people managing their symptoms and living active lives. In all honesty, I personally knew one cat that seemed to be doing okay, but I’d read about those other people. My pep talks seemed to help, her blues abated and she could see her life before her again. I was so looking forward to being with my mother whom I had pushed away rather harshly so I could leave for college and become a bonafide adult. To my horror, however, she never boarded that plane. She suffered a massive stroke and passed away a week before graduation.
I planned my wedding fast, afraid something catastrophic would happen. The day arrived, however. I was getting married and then living happily ever after. I raised my clasped hands to the ceiling and thanked my mother, whom I had believed helped me cobble together this momentous event in two months and ten days.
It wasn’t a grand to-do. I didn’t have a mountain of friends. Roger, on the other hand, had millions. He knew everyone and everyone knew him and I loved that about him. Roger was a communications major and a broadcaster at the college radio station. He was also filming a documentary on serial killers, though it was more about those who lived unbeknownst to murderers, and in his spare time, he had a comedy act he took around town. Roger had a lot of fire and he knew how to light mine. But he also had too many friends and I didn’t want my wedding to become Woodstock. To convince him to whittle the list down to Roger’s family and twenty of our closest friends, I showed him our meager bank accounts and promised after we made our first million, we’d get married again and invite the entire bay area. Though reluctant, the reasonable side of Roger agreed.
Two hours before the ceremony, Desiree and Bernadette, my closest friends from college and my bridesmaids arrived at the apartment I shared with Roger to help me get ready. I pulled out my mother’s diary I had tucked under my pillow and handed it to Desiree. She was seated on top of my bed in a full-length crimson dress, her blonde hair piled high on her head, except for two rivulets of curls that bounced at the sides of her blush cheeks. Bernie was brushing her waist-long brown hair and frowning in the dresser mirror at the gap in the bust of her crimson dress. I leaned against the foot of the bed, gently rolling a silk stocking over my calf, past my knee to my upper thigh where it clipped into my garter.
With her hand at her throat, Des zipped her diamond pendant back and forth. “Why am I reading this?” she asked.
“I want my parents to be with us.”
“Where do I start?”
“At the beginning.”
Des cleared her throat and opened the diary to the newspaper clipping on the first page. “’The Great Flood, March 18, 1946.’”
"You want me to read about a flood?"
I nodded.
"Isn't that a bit morbid for your wedding day?"
"No-one dies. At least not in the article. Though eight people did drown during that flood."
"That's awful," Bernie said. "Have Des read something happy."
"She is."
Des cleared her throat. “’Hero Saves Drowning Child. Local resident, Joseph Callahan, aged 23 from 295 Farnsworth St., saved a six-year-old boy clung to a rocking chair whisking down Main St in rapidly churning water. Callahan heard the child screaming, raced alongside him in his motor boat, tossed an inner tube over his head and dragged him to safety. Callahan wrapped the boy in his jacket and rushed him to Good Samaritan Hospital. The boy was suffering from hypothermia and is now reported to be in stable condition.’”
I had the article committed to memory but this was the first time my friends heard of my father’s heroics. I proceeded to roll the other stocking up my left leg. Desiree kicked off her black patent leather pumps, completely forgetting the joint she’d rolled and dropped on my nightstand.
“That’s awesome,” Bernie said.
“It gets better.” Des scooted to the edge of my bed to avoid the depression behind her. “’May 18, 1946. It has been two months to the day the banks of the Tamiami River overflowed...
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