This year, for her seventieth, Happy said she wanted a relaxed family gathering in Vermont. Mom flipped at first. Happy would be looking at everything with her super critical eye. Our house is one of those redone-ramshackle houses (Dad’s specialty), nothing fancy. Dad’s a carpenter; Mom, a part-time therapist—put their two incomes together and even this old house is more than we can afford. If it weren’t for Happy’s handouts, it wouldn’t even belong to us.
From the basement and the backs of our closets, we began to dig out stuff Happy had given us over the years: the silver napkin rings with our monograms; the dozen framed photographs of Happy with important, famous people; the crystal decanter and matching glasses; the gaudy menorah from Israel. (This we really couldn’t use. Dad’s a secular Jew, as he calls himself, with Mom always putting in “and a sexy one, too.”)
A couple of nights before they were all to arrive, Aunt Joan called up with the latest bulletin. Happy had told her that she had some things to “discuss with the family.”
“Oh boy,” Mom said, rolling her eyes. “Wonder what bomb she’s going to drop.”
“Let’s be positive,” Dad suggested.
“You’re kidding?” Mom said, looking at Dad with disbelief. Optimism was not Dad’s strong suit. But she kept her mouth shut. After all, Happy is Dad’s mom.
“I think it’s great Happy’s coming here,” Nate piped up. Nate’s the only unconflicted person in our family when it comes to our grandmother. The truth is, Happy dotes on her only grandson. She’s obviously grooming him to be the son her son never turned out to be. And Nate’s just Nate around her. Spilling over with eight-year-old enthusiasm and puppy-dog affection. Happy eats it up. “Maybe she’ll come and see my game, you think?”
“I doubt it, honey,” Mom said, not wanting Nate to be disappointed.
“Oh, let’s wait and see,” Dad reminded Mom. Last summer, Happy had come up for the Cub Scout sing-along, at which sixteen little boys sang campfire songs off tune for over an hour.
“I’m with Mom.” Kate was legitimately spinning the lazy Susan, looking for the salt shaker. “Her Highness is not going to hang out at some freezing rink in her mink coat.”
At this image of Happy in her furs, surrounded by screaming fans, we all burst out laughing.
All except Nate. He was looking from one to the other, his bottom lip quivering. “I don’t know why you guys have to be that way with Grandma.” Nate bowed his head, ashamed to be seen crying. Huge cartoon-type tears were falling on his broccoli stir-fry, which he hadn’t wanted to eat anyway.
What Nate didn’t realize was that it wasn’t us down on Happy, but the other way around, Happy down on us.
Or really, it was Happy never being happy. Talk about irony. Her real name was Katherine, but as a kid no one could make her smile. Thus the nickname. (My gossipy Aunt Joan was the source of most of our Happy-as-an-unhappy-child stories.) Happy was an only child of really rich parents, the Kaufmans of Kaufman Quality Products: “K is for Quality from Burners to Wrappers.” Kate and the cousins used to do a performance of the jingle for Happy when we were little kids. I’d get my usual stage fright and stand there, my mouth hanging open, my hands itching like crazy. “This one just is not a ham, is she?” Grandma would laugh, shaking her head at me.
Anyhow, Happy’s father was this genius who invented everything from burner bibs (it really isn’t worth knowing what those things are) to two-ply toilet paper and, of course, Happy Wrap, named after Happy. (“Seal in the Freshness, Bring out the Smiles.”)
Happy’s mom was the real sad story. She had come to America from Germany way back in the 1930s as a nanny, but the rest of her family stayed and later perished in the Holocaust. Happy’s mom never ever talked about it. Instead, she drank too much, and as it turns out, took lots of pills that didn’t agree with the drinking. She died of an overdose soon after Happy came out—as a debutante. I guess with grandparents you don’t really have to say that.
Happy married Grandpa Bob, who legally changed his last name to hers. If I didn’t know Happy, I’d say one big step for feminism. She had Dad, then Aunt Joan, then got divorced. Grandpa Bob died when I was four. Happy remarried three times but never had any more kids. She was like a Queen Bee, discarding husbands. Right now there was no one—that we knew of anyhow. But they crept up on you, Happy’s marriages and divorces. As a matter of fact, we wondered if the news she wanted to discuss was a fifth husband?
The night before Happy was to arrive, there was a knock at my door. “Just us,” Mom and Dad chimed when I asked, “Yes?”
Oh no, I thought. When your parents are at your door together, you know it’s more than a friendly visit. I put my hands under my covers so I could scratch them out of sight.
Mom and Dad sat on either side of my bed. It reminded me of the day way back when I was a little kid and they had told me.
“Milly, your mom and I, well, we’ve noticed . . . ,” Dad began. Suddenly, he looked helpless and flashed Mom a conversational SOS.
“We’ve noticed a change,” Mom picked up. “Is something bothering you? At school? This new boy—”
“You guys!” I said, exasperated.
“You’ve always chosen to be very private about this,” Mom continued quietly. “But it might be good to talk about it, don’t you think?”
“Children come to families in different ways.” Dad always quoted Mom when he didn’t know what to say during a heart-to-heart. Somehow it didn’t annoy me as much when Dad said things as when Mom did. “We couldn’t love you any more if you were...” Dad’s voice got all gravelly.
For a minute my own sadness fell away. “Are you okay, Dad?”
Mom reached over and squeezed Dad’s hand. When he didn’t say anything, Mom explained that Happy’s visit was stirring up stuff for all of us. “Dad’s probably just feeling a little sad about his own mother. Happy’s never made it easy for him.”
I knew the whole story. I mean, I had lived a lot of that story. Happy being furious with Dad for leaving the family business and going off to the Peace Corps. Then even more furious when Dad came back three years later with a non-Jewish wife, a baby daughter, and a sickly, foreign orphan girl. His stock went up briefly when he rejoined Kaufman Quality Products, then plummeted again when he quit and we moved away from Long Island to a state where you couldn’t buy a decent bagel. Periodically, Happy would try to pressure Dad to come back to Kaufman, and when he refused, she’d issue some threat. In fact, one of Mom’s theories about the birthday weekend was that Grandma was coming up to deliver her latest ultimatum. Recently, she’d approached Dad again about joining the family business, and Dad had again refused. “Get ready for the next disowning!” Mom had joked, out of Nate’s hearing that time.
“Grandma doesn’t really mean it, Dad,” I tried consoling him now. No matter how pissed Grandma would get, she always took us back. And she never stopped sending checks in the mail, which Mom and Dad couldn’t accept but ended up cashing because we needed the money. “I mean, I got thrown out once, and that was that.” I was trying for a joke, but the minute I said it, it didn’t sound funny at all.
Mom was looking surprised. “Honey, you weren’t thrown out. It’s just someone couldn’t keep you—”
“What’s the difference?” I guess the pain showed on my face. Mom put her arms around me while I struggled not to cry.
“You see why,” I managed, “why it doesn’t help to talk about it? Why I just want to forget about it?”
My parents didn’t look convinced, but they nodded.
“What do you think?” Dad asked, like I was some fashion consultant. We were in the mudroom, waiting for Happy’s caravan to arrive from New York.
“Truly awesome, Dad.”
Dad took a second look in the mirror. He was wearing his nice chinos, the L.L. Bean shirt we’d all pitched in to get for him for Christmas, and a beige cashmere cardigan that still smelled of mothballs. A gift from Happy. Davey, the monogram read. A nickname Dad disl
ikes, to put it mildly.
“I guess this is as good as it’s going to get.” Dad shook his head at his reflection. His hair was thinning in back, his face seemed more lined: he had that tired look middle-aged people always seem to have. “The truth is, you’ve got an old fart for a dad.”
“Dad, you’re like forty-five. That’s young these days.” Of course, I didn’t for a moment believe it. Forty-five was old. By then, I better have stuff figured out. But could that ever be for me? My whole life lay on top of a mystery that, like Dad said, no one knew much about.
Dad was now looking me over. “By the way, you’re the one who looks great.”
It was the top, I swear. I’d gone shopping with Em for a present for Happy’s birthday, some token gift, because really, as a fifteen-year-old on a ten-dollar-a-week allowance, earning five bucks an hour for occasional babysitting, what can I buy a multi-millionairess? I ended up using the money on this top at Banana Republic. The minute I tried it on and saw the impressed look on Em’s face, I knew the top was perfect for me. The golden wheat color brought out my best feature, my eyes. Its snug fit actually gave me boobs and curved in toward the waist, announcing a figure!
As for Happy’s gift, I ended up making her a homemade birthday card with a corny poem I found on a Web site about grandmothers. Relatives always act like stuff you make them is what they really wanted anyway. As I wrote out the poem inside the card, I actually got teary-eyed. Maybe it was suddenly realizing that Happy was my only grandparent. (Mom’s parents had both died in a car crash when she was in college.) I wanted—strike that: I needed all the family I could get.
I guess it was a lame excuse: using the money for my grandmother’s birthday present on myself. But part of my motivation for buying that top was to please her. I wanted to look good. I wanted Happy to approve of me, to be proud that I was part of her family.
Happy walked in the door, shaking herself out like a wet dog. “Brrr, it’s cold up here.”
Oh no, I thought. Was she complaining already? I wanted everything to turn out perfect for her birthday with us. After Mom, I think I was the most invested in this visit.
On either side of her, Uncle Stanley and Aunt Joan were like her personal valets, taking her coat, agreeing that it was freezing. It was a second or two before I realized that a third person had slipped in with them, a quiet, pale man, very formal in a suit and tie and kind of nervous, like a person who knew he didn’t quite belong. Mr. Eli Strong, he was sort of introduced. I say sort of, because just then the cousins burst in, loaded down with packages and shopping bags, hugging and kissing, lifting their eyebrows suggestively at Happy’s mystery guest, and then exploding into laughter.
Poor Mr. Strong—I sure hoped he had a strong personality and wouldn’t get scared off by our noisy reunion. Entrances and exits were big in this family of command performances. Everyone was talking at once: mostly terrible-weather-on-the-road stories. I don’t know why it is that people who drive up from the city in the winter always make it sound like they just survived a dangerous trek. It’s only Vermont, not the North Pole, for heaven’s sake.
Happy was looking at Dad, nodding appreciatively. “That sweater was made for you, Davey.” All members of the Vermont Kaufman family over eight struggled to keep straight faces. “You do look a little tired, though. Have you lost some weight?”
Now it was Kate’s turn. “Katherine, dear!” Kate’s smile tightened. Kate hates the name Katherine, but who was going to tell Grandma that her namesake didn’t like being called Katherine? “You are looking lovely, as always, but that hair needs a good trim. Next time you come down to New York,” she added, as if poor Kate couldn’t get a decent haircut in Vermont. “Sylvia, how are you, Sylvia?” No time for Mom to reply because just then, Nate came bounding straight into Grandma’s arms. After a long hug and a dozen kisses, Happy held Nate at arm’s length to take a better look at him. “My, my, how you’ve grown! Soon we should be thinking about a prep school for him,” Happy mentioned to Dad. Nate looked panicked and glanced over at Mom, who shook her head imperceptibly. No, he did not have to go to boarding school like Harry Potter.
Finally, Happy caught sight of me at the edge of the group. “Milly?” she questioned. “Could this really be Milly?” It was not her phony millionairess-at-a-cocktail-party act, but the genuine article: Happy Kaufman was impressed.
I followed Nate’s lead and gave my grandmother a warm hug and kiss. “It’s great you decided to have your party here, Grandma. Happy birthday!”
It was meltdown. Happy was smiling widely, happily. Seconds later, she took Nate’s hand and slipped her other arm through mine and allowed us to escort her into our humble abode, whose mortgage she, of course, had paid for.
Dinner was Mom’s solo performance . . . almost. She had knocked herself out making filet mignon—something she never makes in our on-and-off vegetarian family on a budget. We also had these creamed potatoes called potatoes dauphinois, a spinach soufflé, and homemade French bread. She threw in the towel at being Martha Stewart and called Jake’s mom and ordered a Gâteau Roland (just a fancy name for a chocolate cake—everything seemed to have French names tonight). Happy assumed Mom had made the cake— and Mom just . . . well . . . she didn’t try to correct the wrong impression. Poor Mom really needed this moment of glory. I could see her finally relaxing after weeks of being on edge. She even asked Happy how the renovations at the house were going. The answer could last an evening.
Meanwhile, Dad was grilling poor Eli Strong in this kind of suspicious tone of voice. “So what is it you do, Mr. Strong? Law? What kind of law? Estate law, I see.”
“Children,” Happy broke in. She spoke now to the whole table. It was odd to hear grownups called children. “Mr. Strong is my estate lawyer. And he very kindly agreed to accompany me here so we could discuss some matters privately after dinner. Just the children,” she added. Everyone understood she meant Dad and Aunt Joan. Her blood children. Another word, like adopt, that makes my blood run cold.
Nate, the only person present who could get away with asking, blurted out, “So are you gonna get married, Grandma?”
Grandma looked at him a moment as if he had dropped in from outer space. “What on earth for? I’ve got enough problems already!” She glanced pointedly at Dad, then threw back her head and laughed. We guessed it was a joke and joined in.
After dinner, Happy and Dad and Aunt Joan proceeded into the family room with Mr. Strong and shut the door. Uncle Stanley played video games with Nate while the rest of us cleaned up in the kitchen. Then the cousins trooped upstairs to my attic room, where we would all be sleeping. Kate had ceded her room to Aunt Joan and Uncle Stanley. Grandma had decided she’d be more comfortable at the local inn, where Calvin Coolidge or some such person had once stayed. (Why does it matter that some long-dead famous person slept on your bed? It’s downright creepy, if you ask me.) Mr. Eli Strong had a room there as well. “Separate rooms,” the cousins chimed in meaningfully.
We talked for hours, first with the lights on, all of us piled on my bed; then in the dark, everyone tucked away in sleeping bags and on air mattresses. I felt bad for poor Nate, the only boy. He had tried to worm himself into our cuz-coven, but we couldn’t risk it. He was bound to repeat something he heard—and my crazy New York cousins were full of wild stories and theories. They had all been in therapy for years and had a running commentary as to what was “really” going on in our family.
At one point in our marathon gossip session, I thought of bringing up Pablo, but I froze. Although my cousins and I talked about everything else under the sun, we always avoided the topic of my adoption.
Only one time, last summer, Ruthie had mentioned it. She had been sent to stay with us for the month of August. Her therapist was on vacation, and Ruthie was out of control, Aunt Joan told Mom over the phone. Ruthie had her own version of what was going on: her family was totally dysfunctional and projecting their issues on her. Even her dad, who was the sanest, was passive-a
ggressive. “I wish I were you,” Ruthie had said. “Then I could at least hope for a second chance with my real family.”
“This is my real family.” I felt hurt. What did she think? That I was pretending to be a member of our family?
Ruthie instantly took it back. “You know what I mean. Oh God, I’m sorry, Mil, oh please, Mil.”
She must have apologized about a dozen times. There was no room left for me to stay hurt. And really, when I thought it over: it was my own fault. If I’d only talk about my feelings, people wouldn’t be assuming whatever it was they assumed about me.
But I didn’t really want to bring up Pablo tonight. More than ever, I was feeling so much a part of Happy’s family. If there were dark shadows lurking in the wings, what did I care? In my Banana Republic top, with Happy’s arm in mine and my family by my side, I could handle anything.
I woke up with a start—at the very edge of my bed, which I was sharing with cousin Ruthie, the all-time bed hog. The digital clock was right in my face: 2:35, it blared, 2:36. Talk about passive-aggressive.
Just go back to sleep, I kept telling myself. But I couldn’t. The question I had been avoiding for weeks popped right up: What was I going to do about Pablo?
I couldn’t hide out forever. I had pretty much stopped going to lunch with my friends. Em and I no longer had much to talk about every night. I had to do something. Suddenly, the answer glowed like the numbers on the clock: change schools. Of course!