Writing in Wet Cement

By Jayne Lisbeth

All these years later, nightmares of that marriage wrack my sleep. Heart pounding, I am cowering, running, trying to escape. My whimpers awaken the man now beside me, who loves me with only sweetness, kindness and laughter. He cradles me, dragging me back from the past into the joy and safety of my current life. I stare into the darkness of the night and memories. I wonder, not why did that marriage fail, but why did I allow it to last so long? To the outside world, it looked perfect. Only my mother and closest friends knew the inside reality of my life and how I was caught in the velvet trap of psychological abuse.

Jayne Lisbeth was a privileged child, yet death and loss tore apart her world from an early age. The explosion of the free love and feminist movements of the 60s and 70s provided a renaissance, which slipped away during her marriage and motherhood in the 80s. Then, discovering her mother's past secrets illuminated the connections between their generations. Through that she found the courage to escape and create a new future.

In deeply personal ways, Ms. Lisbeth reveals the depths of pain and elevation of joy by sharing her most intimate life experiences through sensually evocative words and painterly writing. Writing in Wet Cement is a tale which resonates with all women.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Nov 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781528971218

Jayne Lisbeth

Jayne Lisbeth was born in New York City in 1949. From there, life took her to New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts, California and finally Tampa, Florida where she resides with her artist husband. Ms. Lisbeth is an avid grave-stone rubber who has pursued her craft in cemeteries from New England and the Southeast US to the West Coast of California and Oregon. Ms. Lisbeth has been published in the Pomfret, Vermont News, Sacramento Magazine, Monterey News, Monterey Peninsula Magazine, Phoenix Anthology, and Pages of My Life Anthologies. She has received awards at the local level for her short stories and poetry. Her first book, Writing in Wet Cement, has been well received as a ‘deeply personal memoir’, revealing the depths of pain and elevation of joy by sharing her most intimate life experiences through sensually evocative words and painterly writing which resonates with all readers. Her blog, ‘Food for Thought’ explores women’s roles in sensitive, provocative portrayals of the difficulties and joys women experience through all stages of their lives. ‘Food for Thought’ appears on Ms. Lisbeth’s website, jaynelisbeth.com [http://jaynelisbeth.com/], as well as on her Austin Macauley website, jayne lisbeth.ampbk.com [http://jaynelisbeth.ampbk.com/].

Book preview

Epilogue

About The Author

Jayne Lisbeth is a writer who focuses on the evolution and distillation of women’s lives, their joyous and painful relationships buoyed by enduring friendships and family history. After growing up on Long Island, Jayne’s life took her to Vermont, Massachusetts, and California, all of which figure prominently in her work. She and her artist husband live in Tampa, Florida.

Dedication

Dedicated to my sweetheart and husband, Tim Gibbons.

Tim first built me a treehouse and then a new life filled with possibilities I had only dreamt of in the past. With his unconditional love, patience, humor, advocacy, and life’s lessons, he helped me become the woman I am today. His pride in my accomplishments gave me the confidence to write. Without Tim, the pages of my life would be only half lived and written. He is the brightest guiding star in my universe and the wind that sails our magic carpet ride through life.

Copyright Information ©

Jayne Lisbeth (2019)

The right of Jayne Lisbeth to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528942614 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528971218 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2019)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Acknowledgment

Writing in Wet Cement is a tribute and thank you to all the women in my life who encircled me and uplifted me with their love and unending support. Rosie’s enduring friendship of 40 years carried me through my darkest hours. Paula Stahel molded me into a writer before I believed I was one. Paula’s hawk-eyed editor’s vision and perception turned Writing in Wet Cement from a mass of words into a polished book. Thank you to my professional first readers who validated my story: Robin Rogers Murphy, Rosemary Borel, Eleanor Seavey, Francie King, and Suzan Brown Greenfield. My children helped keep me alive and out of the dark. My deepest gratitude is for my mother, who shared her history, memories, strength and stories. Thank you to Chrisje Mays for the front cover photo.

"I must admit that I couldn’t put down Jayne’s memoir, Writing in Wet Cement. It was so riveting that I raced through it in three days, staying up till the wee hours to finish it. This is a testimony of Jayne’s talent and skills in storytelling, an attribute most likely handed down by her mother. Her mother’s story paralleled hers and was an integral part of the book, often influencing how Jayne made subsequent life-changing decisions.

Jayne has told her story with honesty, revealing her deepest feelings ranging from joie de vie during her happiest times to moments of heart-breaking loss and despair. I was amazed at the number of losses she endured, the last one brought me to tears. Counterbalancing these adversities, the support of her women friends and of her mother helped Jayne assert her independence and worth and find her voice. One noticeable point was the importance of the kitchen in the story, always the central place in every home that Jayne occupied. This was the place from which she nurtured her children, the place where she and her women friends gathered together most often, and where she and her mother connected over making the tomato basil sauce.

Thanks to these women in her life and finally meeting men who affirmed that she was indeed a good, beautiful and caring woman, Jayne finds herself and survives, showing strength and resilience."

Rosemary Borel

Author: Thriving in the Care of Many Mothers

Published: December 2015

Chapter 1

Jayne, I’m dying.

My mother’s skin was almost as parched as the hospital-bleached pillow upon which she lay, her white hair tangled into the whiteness of the bed. Alabaster skin. Her eyes huge, luminous. They matched mine. Blue. Twins in our old and young faces.

I had to be strong for her. Breaking down now would force her to feel the need to comfort me. This was not the time. There’d be plenty of hours to cry through later.

I know.

Are you happy? The query was forced through her dry mouth and cracked lips.

I understood her question completely and irrevocably. How could she not know the answer?

Yes. But not about this. I gestured towards the tubes, the machines, their soft fluttering sounds filling the empty spaces of our lives. Everything else, yes. I’m happy. Happier than I ever thought I could be. As happy as you and Daddy were.

Don’t forget about – The machines filled in her gasp.

I leaned closer. Don’t forget about?

The sounds spewing from the bedside machines were the only reply. My mother was silent. She was gone again, into the netherworld she occupied more and more. Had she meant to say, Don’t forget about God or me? A quandary knowing my mother. I chose the me.

Mom, I could never forget about you. How could I? All your stories. My life. Our life.

Her eyes fluttered open in panic. Jayne! Don’t forget to take the chicken out of the oven! Call Maria and tell her dinner will be late. Use the good china and silver. Eyes flashing open, then closing slowly. The small grimace of distaste that I had long ago nicknamed her sucking on a lemon look, reserved especially for the disobedient, was now my mother’s usual countenance.

I will, Mom, I will.

More soft fluttering in the background. Nurses in and out. Machines pumping. Monitors beeping. The wait. The long wait to the end. So much of death is like birth.

How much of life is made up of the lessons learned witnessing death? I’ve learned to celebrate the significance of death. Death teaches us how to live. The value of living. The ultimate necessity of living life to the fullest.

At an early age my father’s death had shaped my life. That childhood lesson taught me the value of my parent’s love that created me, in all ways. In pain, in joy, in exuberance, in glory, in stories told and in history lost, regained, imagined. It all starts with birth. Death is a walk through the fire, barefoot across the coals of sorrow. I learned and am still learning. How much of life is created from death? A phoenix rising from the ashes of devastation. I sat by my mother’s bed through the long night of life and into the early dawn of death. Haunted by her memories.

Often during those hours in the hospital, I hid my sobs in the bathroom. Why did I feel I couldn’t share my grief with her? Reassuring myself more than my mother, I often recited my favorite poem to her, Leonard Cohen’s As the Mist Leaves No Scar, which held the most important line for this moment: When wind and hawk encounter, / What remains to keep? /

So, you and I encounter, / Then turn, then fall to sleep. / As many nights endure / Without a moon or star, / So will we endure / When one is gone and far.

While I kept vigil next to my mother’s sterile white bed I wondered, had I ever said enough? Had I listened enough? Learned enough? Had I written down enough of her stories? Would I remember enough to share her history with my children? Was it too late? For nearly forty years I had comforted her, cared for her, watched over her. From 1958, when the light went out of her life at my father’s death, until this day, in 1997, I had shared the years, the stories, the memories.

Throughout the hours in the hospital my sister Cici called, asking, in varying degrees of sorrow and anger, how she was, what was happening, was Mom awake? I knew she was passing her guilt to me over her absence at our mother’s bedside. I knew Cici could not possibly have left her family in Chicago at a moment’s notice to share these last hours of our mother’s life. But I refused to comfort my sister in her rising hysteria when our mother needed me so much more. She’s in and out of it. Cici, please don’t call all the time. I’ve turned the phone off in Mom’s room and the calls are re-routed to the nurse’s station. Every time you call the nurses have to come get me. They’re busy. Then I have to leave Mom to take the calls. Please try to understand. I’m just trying to give her as much peace as possible. I’ll call you if anything changes.

When I had awakened that January morning, I had no idea the day would end so differently, so ironically, from what we had been expecting. After my mother’s successful surgery a month earlier for colon cancer, her outlook had been positive. My sister-in-law and dear friend Loreene worked as a speech therapist at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, where my mother had been for the previous month. When I was unable to be with Mom, Loreene provided updates on her care and prognosis. I also received daily phone calls from the surgeons and physicians. That morning I had expected a call to tell me which rehab facility my mother would enter the next day. Her doctor’s phone call was expected, but his news was not.

Jayne, you need to get to the hospital as soon as possible.

Well, I’m at work. Can I come tomorrow when we admit Mom into rehab? A long pause and his unexpected sigh made my heart lurch.

No. She won’t be going to rehab. I’m sorry. There’s been a setback. You need to come, as soon as you possibly can. She probably won’t last the day.

My mind stopped. All the sounds of the busy office faded away. He must be mistaken.

That can’t be happening. Yesterday you said she would go to rehab.

Another long pause. I’m so sorry, Jayne. I’m certain. Come as quickly as you can.

I flew from work and stopped at home to grab my journal and my favorite poetry books. I drove much too fast from Tampa to Sarasota. My heart raced all the while, my mind numb, in denial. At times my tears ran so hot that I could barely see the road. Now, at my mother’s bedside, how I ached, how my heart broke, to see my vibrant, beautiful, magnificent mother gone into some other world. She was no longer here.

Then her eyes flew open. Mama! Mama! My mother’s endearment for her mother. Never had I heard my mother call her parents anything but Mama and Papa, the loving titles our ancestors had carried from the Old Country when they emigrated in the 1880s. I loved those endearments. Mama and Papa always reminded me of how my mother’s life bridged two worlds in languages and cultures. Mama, she called out again, more quietly, resignedly.

I drew closer to listen to her mumbling, but could make out no words. In her journey she now saw people long gone. She settled back into her task of leaving the world I inhabited. She became still again. Her long slim fingers lay unmoving, her nails unadorned by her signature Cherries in the Snow nail polish. In the hospital, she’d had to exchange glamour for practicality. Clean fingernails allowed her oxygen levels to be read by the nurses and doctors.

Memories enveloped me. I remembered those beautiful hands skipping across the keys of our piano in Great Neck, Long Island, in 1954. She wore a quilted satin lounge gown. Her feet, in high heels, pumped the pedals. Her trilling voice accompanied her playing. I recalled her singing in our kitchen years later in Wyckoff, New Jersey, in my teenage nastiness, begging her, "Please! Stop singing! Why didn’t I realize she sang for joy, a far better music than the dead silence that had shrouded our home for years after my father’s death? Much later, in my own kitchen as I happily sang my way through preparing dinner, my children’s voices paid back my history. Mom! Stop! You’re killing us!"

I watched my mother’s chest rise and fall, rise and fall. Why don’t our children ever realize their mothers have a past separate from theirs, full of joyous songs and music savored from our lives before children? Suddenly it’s too late to say anything that should have been said years before. However long, life is always too short.

The nurses came into the room. I’m sorry, but your sister—is it Cici? Cecelia? She’s called again.

Both. She was named after my mother. She prefers to be called Cici. Why was this important now? I asked myself. Clearly, I was exhausted, my thoughts and communication rattled.

Well, whatever her name is, she won’t stop calling and screaming at us. The nurse plugged in the room phone. You’ll have to take the call.

I picked up the phone the second its jangled interference broke the peace of the room.

"Jayne, put Mom on the phone. Now. You have no right to keep me from her." My sister’s voice rose an octave. I feared the inevitable escalation into angry hysteria that I had known from her all my life. I could not bear to fight with her now. I placed the receiver against Mom’s ear. After all, this was Cici’s mother too, and the grandmother to her five kids. Hearing Cici’s voice, my mother struggled to rise through the fog of dying.

Mom, I heard Cici say, I’m going to put the kids on the phone. Her voice prodded her youngest two children in the background as they protested. They did not remember their grandmother. It had been years since their last visit with her. More prodding from Cici in the background. Their voices repeated their mother’s command: Granma, we love you.

My mother mumbled something in reply and tried to push the phone away. I gently took it and hung up on my sister’s rising wave of rage. This was not the time to worry about Cici, negotiate with her, or hope she would understand.

Throughout the day nurses came and went. I waited, watched, and reflected upon the eighty-five years of my mother’s life. If only I had asked more questions. Did I know enough? Now it was too late for her to solve any more mysteries.

I watched with great relief as her eyes fluttered. Mama, she whispered again. Her failing voice carried me along the avenues of her dreams. Her life, as much as she had shared with me, paraded before me. All her stories came alive, transporting me back to Brooklyn, to Long Island, to New Jersey, to Siesta Key, and now to this hospital room. I imagined her journey through the past and into the unknown future. Why did she not cry out for my father, the love of her life, whose death had devastated her? Why did her heart go back to her mama, to whom she was never close?

I had always begged my mother to share her memories with me. Her stories were romantic and full of events I witnessed only through her eyes. I recognized the value of preserving what little family history I knew, yet she often protested, Oh, Jayne, I don’t want to talk about all that old stuff. I had persisted over the years, to mine her stories. Eventually, after a few cocktails, I would be rewarded. Pieces would emerge, adding sprinkles of knowledge through words jotted in her spidery scrawl on cocktail napkins, menus and, later, from her many journals and photo albums.

As I sat by her bed, I tried my best to remember her life as she had told it and written it over her long years of living. I listened to her fading voice calling out for her mama, her mumbled references to others from her soon-to-be-gone world. She was communicating with the ghosts of our family, some of whom I had never met. They were invisible to me, but not to my mother. Her fleeting smiles, the movement of her hands, told me she was with the heart stones of her life, with those who were her bedrock and foundation. Listening to her, holding her hand, watching her life drain away, I remembered so many of our conversations vividly. In those final moments of her life I felt my mother and I became one.

I awoke with a start. How could I possibly have fallen asleep?

Two nurses were at the head of my mother’s bed, checking her vitals. It was just after one a.m. The hospital was awash in whispers. Deep silence in the halls, so different from the bustle of carts, gurneys and I.V. transporters that made up the day sounds of the hospital corridors. One of the nurses smiled at me sympathetically. She put her hand on my shoulder. It won’t be long now, dear.

Impossible, I thought. My mind could not accept this inevitability. Even though I had trained as a hospice volunteer and was aware of the final mechanics of life into death, I still believed that somehow my mother would pull through. This was not her time. It couldn’t be.

I hadn’t told her how sorry I was for all the lapses in our relationship.

I hoped she could still hear my voice as she lay between two worlds. She was traveling away from me. Traveling to what? The River Styx? The white light? The final voyage. The big question. I watched her still white figure as the nurses whooshed quietly out of the room, leaving me to my memories and sorrow. My mother had not spoken or cried out for hours. I kept waiting for her to say, Papa! Sweetheart! Teddy! She never did.

Words of her sorrow floated back to me from a conversation years before. It hurt me to remember those words. Janie, we used to be so close. I don’t know what happened. It was true. We had been close through all my early teen years. Our shopping trips to Bloomingdale’s, when my mother would talk me into cutting school to spend the day with her. The meals shared. The hours of therapy I provided, easing her through the pain of her relationship with my sister, the bad girl, the black sheep of our family. I had always been the good girl, the helpmate, the peacemaker. Who was I now?

Life had changed in 1967, when I left home at seventeen to marry and again when I moved to Vermont two years later. Emotionally, I had left years earlier. Plagued by her 1950s mentality of being the good mother in apron and heels, I had become the braless hippie of the 60s and 70s. Through the 1980s, and my marriages, my mother and I had grown further apart as it seemed our two worlds constantly collided. I comforted myself with the thought that, during the last few years, we had finally reached a peaceful understanding and pride in each other. Perhaps there was not total approval on my mother’s part, but at least acceptance.

The nurses returned, now one on each side of the white blankness of my mother’s bed. Cold, hard and brittle Mom looked against all that whiteness. But beautiful. She was the glowing star in all of that icy gloom.

I watched the pulse in her carotid artery, as I had been doing for most of the night. That little blip in her throat reassured me, gave me strength and hope. She was still here. I looked at the nurse across the bed and said, Isn’t she beautiful? Even now, look how beautiful she is.

I smiled at my mother, touched my hand to her forehead, brushed away the pure white strands of hair, so soft. The blip of life pumped away as I held her hand. A random memory made me smile. I remembered a photo from her 1943 album. It was my parents’ wedding photograph. She was dressed glamorously, as always. She wore a hat with a veil and a huge white corsage—a gardenia? Her smile was enormous. Her eyes gleamed. She was so happy it made me cry whenever I viewed that photo.

She’s gone, dear.

Both nurses intently watched for my reaction.

No, she’s not. Look, I can still see her pulse.

That’s not really her pulse, dear. It’s the final circulation of her heart. The last beating. She’s gone.

The time I had feared for decades had come. Before the knowledge hit me full force, before I was left alone with my mother and my grief and my gaping heart and sobs, the thought struck me: The last words my mother heard from me were not, I’m sorry I ever made you angry. Not even, I love you. But, Isn’t she beautiful, even now, look how beautiful she is.

Somehow, that was appropriate. And perhaps those were the words she most wanted to hear.

Those screaming cries, they were mine? Is this what ‘keening’ means, that medieval word which expresses the deepest grief imaginable? Am I instinctively crying out from some genetic past, the agony that every human suffers through the dark ages of time? I was clearly cracking, like an ancient Anasazi pottery shard I now imagined myself to be. Once a complete vessel, made to be utilitarian, beautiful through its years of use, surfaces burnished, then shattered.

It was almost four a.m. Alone by my mother’s lifeless body, I rocked back and forth, a litany of pleading screaming silently in my mind. Loreene, I need you now. I need you now. I need you now. Please. Loreene. I need you now. Please come help me. Before the fire of grief had thrown me full-force into the flames, I had promised myself I wouldn’t call Loreene before six a.m. I knew she didn’t have to be at work at the hospital, until seven-thirty. Suddenly, there she was, enfolding me. Jayne, I came as soon as I heard you call.

I was astounded that she was there when I needed her. Loreene. I didn’t call.

Burt and I both heard your voice, Jayne. So did the cats. They were sound asleep on our bed and your voice woke them up.

What are you talking about?

"Jayne. We heard you. I know the answering machine was turned off when we went to bed. We all heard you, loud and clear. You said you needed me. ‘Please come.’ So I did."

It’s true, I thought. There are other dimensions of reality, other levels of communication.

It’s true.

For the last time, I looked at my mother before I left the room. At that moment, in my heart and vision, I imagined my mother and father were now dancing together. They were full of their love and joy. Their song, Some Enchanting Evening was playing in its tender beauty and the eternal promise of Once you have found her, never let her go. They were together again. Finally, after all these years of separation, they were reunited.

Now there was the reality of cremation, planning a life celebration, dealing with funeral directors, attorneys, friends, and relatives. I couldn’t escape my responsibilities.

At the funeral home, I read the directives Mom had written out so carefully. I tried to focus on her final wishes. Everything was so clear, laid out meticulously with my mother’s careful organizational and secretarial skills. I was amazed at the attention to detail, but I shouldn’t have been. She may have been eighty-five, but she was still one smart lady.

The funeral director’s assistant knocked, then entered the room quietly. Holding his hands apologetically in front of him, he stammered, Ms. Lisbeth, your sister is on the phone. I’m sorry, but she insists that you speak with her.

Cici, still the official obfuscator of truth in our family. Immediately after Mom’s death, my sister returned to the battleground of our youth, full force. Cici vs. Janie. Reluctantly, I picked up the phone on the director’s desk.

Jayne. When is the will going to be read?

Cici, could we talk about this later?

"No. We need to talk about this now. I will not be pushed aside. You’ve already seen the will. You know what’s going on. You’re keeping me out. I talked to Matt Benicott."

Mom’s estate manager?

Yes. He wouldn’t tell me anything.

Cici, maybe that’s because Mom died only yesterday? The will hasn’t been read. Please, we’ve got to talk about this later. I’m with the funeral director now.

"No!"

I hung up the phone. Although it was only eleven o’clock in the morning, I knew Cici was probably drinking. Twenty minutes later, the same assistant scuttled into the room, more apologetic than ever. I’m so sorry. It’s your sister again. She insists on speaking with you. Another conversation, a repeat of the last. Cici was now clearly drunk. I hung up the phone, her screams ringing in my ears: "I want to hear what the will says now!"

When the funeral plans were almost wrapped up and I was getting ready to depart, another interruption. The assistant merely looked at me this time. I sighed, picked up the phone.

Auntie, it’s Anne.

Anne, at twenty-six, was the eldest of Cici’s children and my sister’s ally, the protector, the caretaker, the peacemaker of the family whenever things fell apart. Anne was my mother’s favorite, a fact well known to us all. Amy, three years younger than Anne, was the light-hearted comedienne, providing the laughter and distraction that kept the reality of their family life hidden. The two girls were a united front. Their partnership kept their three younger brothers on a steady footing. Anne took care of the family and Amy kept them happy. Anne and I, too, shared a deep loving bond. She was the only other person in our family who loved my mother as I did. I could lean on her. We never fought. Now, her voice was angry. "Why are you shutting my mother out of Grandma’s funeral plans? Why won’t you speak with her? This is completely unfair. She’s your sister, your mother’s daughter. I can’t believe you could be so cruel. What’s wrong with you? Mom is hysterical with grief! How could you do this to her?"

My dam burst. Enough was enough. I screamed the truth to Anne about her mother’s phone calls, and her vodka-instilled hysteria. I shouted at Anne that her mother wasn’t interested in funeral plans, only Mom’s will. "My sister, your mother, is, once again, only interested in what she can get out of our mother!" Out of breath, I slammed down the phone. I realized I was standing in front of the director’s desk. When had I stood up? I could hear the echoes of my yelling in the now silent room.

Some things never changed, even in death, I thought. My childhood battles with my sister had followed me here, to the funeral home. I was awash in fury. I grabbed my purse, ran from the room, and—wondering if I was capable of making the hour’s drive to Tampa safely—headed for my car.

I awoke in the comfort and solace of my own bed. The sun streamed through the curtains over my head, as it did every morning. The house was quiet. Long shadows danced with the light on the tile floors outside my bedroom door. For a few peaceful, beautiful moments I forgot the reality of my mother’s death.

Bryant tiptoed into the room with my coffee. Are you all right? he asked. His glasses were steamed from heat of the mug. The newspaper was under his arm. Just like every morning. But today my world was different and would never be the same again.

Have my kids called? I asked.

Bry snuggled back under the covers. Jack called. He said he’d come back from his dad’s in time for the life celebration on Sunday.

Lana? I hoped Lana would come from college. The past seven years had been both exhilarating and trying. Magnificence had come with finding the man of my dreams and a relationship that brought me intense love and joy. Pain, though had also come with what seemed at the time an inexplicable change in my daughter. When Lana was fourteen, she had, literally one day turned into a stranger, one who could not be in the same room with me without vicious battles or silence. Her distance from me was more than I could bear. The only positive aspect of those painful years had been her deepening relationship with my mother. Now, with Mom’s death, I wondered how Lana would react. Perhaps our shared grief would bring her back to me.

Not yet. There were no messages.

Bry left to teach a class and I forced myself into my bathrobe. I struggled through the morning, awaiting the onslaught that would arrive with my sister. The battle had begun the day before, over my mother’s diamond ring and wedding band set, when I answered a call from Mom’s lawyer and estate manager. Jayne, it’s Matt Benicott. Your sister’s been calling again. About the will.

What’s the problem? She has a copy. It’s a simple half and half. Fifty-fifty, right?

Well, it’s about your mother’s engagement ring and wedding band. She wants them. She says she’s the eldest and they should go to her.

"Did she not understand the clause that our mother added, specifically about her jewelry? The part about how my sister was not to be trusted with or given any of it?"

Yes, but—

Do you know why those were my mother’s wishes?

Well, I know your sister and she had problems.

Matt, my sister pawned every piece of jewelry Mother ever gave her. Expensive, beautiful pieces that are gone from our family forever.

Cici wonders if you would reconsider, give them to her as a gift, in good faith, as a sisterly gesture, since she is the eldest.

No! Her wedding set is the most sentimental, loving proof of her and my father’s marriage. I am not taking her rings off. You’ll have to cut them off my finger to get them from me. I slammed down the phone.

Again, I recalled every instant leading up to Mom’s death. It was almost a month ago to the day, Christmas Eve, when she had handed me her beloved wedding ring set as she was prepped for surgery. Janie, take these.

Only on the condition that I give them back to you when you’re out of surgery.

No. Keep them.

I can’t. You’ll want them later. They’re too important to you.

They were a fifth anniversary gift from my father in 1948, and meant so much more to Mom than mere jewelry. Diamonds had been unaffordable when they married. My father bought the lovely ring set from my friends, the Jews in the Diamond District. The Diamond District in Manhattan was also where my father’s pharmaceutical firm had been located. The rings were a beautiful promise of a love-fulfilled life and a perfect, prosperous future.

En masse, Cici and her family arrived the next night. We had not seen one another in so long that it began as a surprisingly joyous reunion. Lots of funny remembrances and stories. Lots of cocktails. After dinner, as things usually went, the joyousness deteriorated. True to form, Cici’s husband, Harry, fought with everyone. He and Cici got drunker and drunker. Bry and I eventually hid upstairs until everyone stumbled into a taxi to the hotel. Now, until everyone’s return, I had the house to myself for the morning. Again, I started to crack. I was tired of being strong. I told myself I had to stay strong. Suddenly the thought hit me: Why?

I wanted to cry forever. I didn’t want to be touched or comforted or spoken to. I only wanted to grieve in absolute privacy. Just this one day I wanted to be left alone. I wanted to cry myself sick. It was Friday. My mother had died on Tuesday. The world went on, the earth continued to spin on its axis.

I gave myself permission to grieve. The tears began. I would never hear my mother’s voice again. I would never hear her stories again. I would never witness her sucking-on-a-lemon look again. I would never again treasure the joy and the confidences she finally learned to share with Bry. I would never tease him again, I swear, my mother loves you more than me. What happened to her hating you for your long hair?

Well, you know. That was all Anne’s doing. She’s the peacemaker of the family.

Anne. The only one who understood my grief, when they arrived, and I refused to get out of my bathrobe or go anywhere