am secretly relieved when Marian opts not to show me the guest room. “I’ve got all my ironing in there—too messy!” She laughs. And again with the master bedroom—there was no reason to drag the tour into Marian’s private space. The only fond memory I have of that room was one classic day when our cat, after being kicked by our father, proceeded to steal into his closet and methodically piss in all his shoes. Chris and I gained a lot of respect that afternoon for the Russian blue we called Pug.
I thank Marian for her kindness as she walks me back out to the front yard. We exchange cell numbers and email addresses. I embrace her for giving me the chance to revisit this place, to remember the good with the bad.
Before I pull away from the curb, I envision Chris sprinting toward me on the street, Buck fast on his heels, me with stopwatch in hand cheering him on to beat his latest personal running record. One last look at the yard recalls the building of snow forts, storing our frozen ammunition in hidden bunkers in preparation for a surprise attack from the other neighborhood hoodlums out of school for the day.
What I initially saw as a property suffering from neglect now appears to just be a very relaxed home. Exhausted from the charade it hosted for the better part of two decades, it is no longer expected to uphold any impression, no longer required to hide any sins. It is what it is. It might not look as pretty, but it now lives with peace, and I find myself envious. I watch the house get smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror, until it finally disappears.
. . . I want to go up to them and say Stop, don’t do it—she’s the wrong woman, he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things you cannot imagine you would ever do, you are going to do bad things to children, you are going to suffer in ways you have never heard of, you are going to want to die. I want to go up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it, . . . but I don’t do it. I want to live. I take them up like the male and female paper dolls and bang them together at the hips like chips of flint as if to strike sparks from them, I say Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.
—Sharon Olds, excerpts from “I Go Back to May 1937,” The Gold Cell
CHAPTER 1
MY PARENTS’ BEDROOM was fairly large for a sixties-era upper-middle-class home in Annandale, Virginia. It was simply yet elegantly decorated in blue and white. The light carpet looked plush and warm yet felt prickly due to the Scotchgard that protected it from stains. The squared edges of the sturdy teak furniture were seamless and smooth. Not long after my seventh birthday, just a few days before entering the second grade, I sat on the white bed, legs crossed around the day’s stuffed animal of choice, attempting to braid my shoulder-length hair while Mom folded laundry. As was often the routine, I became lost in thought, admiring a picture on my mother’s dresser. This image seemed special to me, not just because there were very few pictures displayed in our home but also because it looked like something out of a fairy tale. My mother stood beaming in the rose-hued portrait, a beautiful smile on her flawless face, her bouffant beehive, dress, and pearls reminiscent of a Cinderella storybook. Beside her stood a handsome prince. His kind eyes welcomed you into the safety of his broad shoulders.
“Who’s that, Mom?” I asked.
She looked up from the pile of clothing, and I couldn’t tell if her puzzled expression was due to the tangles my fingers were creating or the sea of socks she was attempting to reunite. “What?”
“That man in the picture.” I pointed. “Who is he?”
She dropped her hands to her sides, tilted her head, and gave me an answer I would never have expected. “Oh, Carine, don’t be silly. That’s your father!”
Although the mother I knew rarely smiled and had a different hairstyle, it was obviously her in the picture. But my father was completely unrecognizable. I was staring at a stranger, one who clearly loved my mother. I imagined his hands rested peacefully at her waist. His head leaned slightly toward hers, as if she might turn at any moment with something important to say.
Over a decade later Chris would tell me the true history behind that mystifying photograph. Through Chris, other family members, and my own recollections, in time I pieced together the entire story.
Back in the early 1960s, before I was born, my mother was a beautiful young dance student fresh out of high school. She left the small town of Iron Mountain, Michigan, for the dream life of affluence and prestige she believed awaited her in sunny Los Angeles. Her name was Wilhelmina Johnson. Friends called her Billie.
My mother was the third of six children born into a hard-working, low-income family. The siblings shared one bedroom in a tiny house built by their father and nestled in an expansive pine forest. I remember Grandpa Loren as an accomplished outdoorsman, with a body that seemed too thin, skin that seemed too thick, and a smoldering cigarette permanently attached to his right hand. He had great hair—a lush wave of deep brown and silver that flowed straight back until it disappeared behind his ears. His voice was gentle and kind when he spoke to me, to my brother, or to the wildlife around his home, but it grew harsh when he criticized my Grandma Willy—for being overweight, for the mess that accumulated indoors, or for being lazy. Grandma—a thoughtful woman who always had her hands busy crocheting, making crafts for her next church bazaar or gifts for her many grandchildren—barked back just enough to let him know that she had heard him and was choosing to ignore him.
I remember Mom often speaking about her difficult childhood. How they had very little money, how she had to endure the brunt of Grandma’s aggression, which was not aimed back at the proper assailant. But she also spoke of the solace she found along the wooded trails where she led tourists on horseback as part of the family business and the comfort she found in the peaceful snowfalls of a long winter.
At eighteen, Billie was bright and eager but also naïve. She thought the dance lessons she’d taken in Iron Mountain could be parlayed into a career, but after several fruitless attempts to develop her talent in the bustling entertainment capital of California, she tagged along with her roommates one day to apply to be a stewardess. Although her slight figure fell within the strict requirements of the era’s airline industry, her height did not measure up to her adventurous spirit. Unafraid of hard work and determined to succeed in her independence, she created a fallback plan with her excellent typing skills and landed a secretarial job at Hughes Aircraft. There she met her new boss, Walt McCandless.
Walt was a respected leader in his division and quickly climbing the ladder. In the decade after the Soviets launched Sputnik, the U.S. space program was well funded, and the Hughes operation in California was large—the epicenter of the effort to prove American dominance in space. Walt wore his lofty position well. He was well educated, a hard worker, and a talented jazz pianist with a voice that made ladies at after-hours socials swoon. He was also a married man with three children and another on the way. Billie was attracted to his success. Walt noticed.
I can imagine my father as my mother must have seen him. When he walked into a room, he commanded it, his magnetic hazel eyes daring you to look away. But when he laughed, his eyes watered, making him look far less dominant. He swept you up in his knowledge about books, world history, music, travel, and
