My Own Heart's Song (eBook)
248 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-7364-8 (ISBN)
Katherine Girsch holds an MA in Spanish Literature. She lives and writes in a renovated nineteenth-century cottage in the center of Salem, Oregon and is currently at work on a novel that follows Laura, the protagonist of My Own Heart's Song, in her later years.
In this Gen X coming of age journey, Laura Weber, temperamentally unable to feign emotion, expresses exactly what she feels-delight, apprehension, regret, or hope. On a quest for wonder, she lights up life with flashes of pleasure and pain that expose where she stands at any given moment. She makes impulsive U turns, changing opinions and majors and lovers, but maintains a steadfast commitment to the central friendship of her life and never once misses the three sacred hours of Sunday dinner with her family in the Bronx. When asked how she somehow managed to turn a dilemma into a triumph, Laura reveals her essence. "e;The way I accomplish everything. With help."e; An introspective extrovert who thrives on human interaction, she discovers herself through friends and lovers and family members. Together with them, she tells a story of loss and recovery.
Laura:
Childhood
Eleven Days in June
June 2, 1986. Dionne Warwick and Stevie Wonder were singing “That’s What Friends Are For” on the radio as Mom finished pinning up the white dress I’d be wearing for graduation from Bronx PS 191 and the after party celebrating my acceptance into Hunter College High School. “There you go, Laura. I’ll hem it after dinner.” She pulled the dress over my head, smoothed my hair, and wiped her eyes. “This song makes me cry.”
“Mom, it’s a happy song.”
“Oh, sweetie.” She hugged me tight and her voice got shaky, “I love you so much.”
“I know. I love you too.”
“Always,” she said, “we’ll always love each other. Won’t we?”
“For sure, Mom.”
She closed her sewing basket and gazed out the window. Sometimes the sad way she stared into space worried me, but not that day. The excitement of the coming weeks filled every bit of space in my head. I remembered Dad’s words, “It’s just the way your mother is, a sweet mystery.” He was right. I knew that before long she’d have a happy thought and her laughter would sound like bells ringing.
The next afternoon, five days before my spring piano recital and a week and a half before sixth grade graduation, our family fell apart. No one would tell me the whole story. All I knew was that it had to do with sex and disappointment, and that Dad had ordered Mom to leave our house.
When she told me she was going to stay a night or two with Aunt Doreen, her best friend since their first day at Little Flower Elementary School, then move all the way down to Brooklyn and live with a guy named Manny, I laid my head in her lap and wept. “Do you love Manny?”
“Not really,” she said, “but I like him.”
“Do you still love Dad?”
“I do. We love each other.”
“Then why is he making you leave?”
She leaned down to kiss the side of my forehead. “Laura, it’s my fault. Don’t blame Daddy.”
I sat up and faced her. “It’s the sex, isn’t it? Can’t you just promise him it’ll never happen again?”
“I did that once before, and then I broke my promise. He doesn’t trust me.”
“Oh Mom, my heart is broken. And whether you and Dad know it or not, yours will be too.”
“You’re right. All our hearts are broken, but we’ll keep loving each other, and someday we’ll be fine. You take care of Daddy.”
Though I passed the next five days in a blur of tears, a thread of hope wound its way through my misery. Dad will see Mom at my piano recital. He’ll forgive her for the sex and invite her back home. We’ll be a family again.
On Sunday at the Jewish Center I finished playing “Clair de Lune,” scanned the crowd, and spied an empty seat next to Aunt Doreen. It’s where Mom should be sitting. My heart pounded in panic and then sank. She’s gone from our family. Our happiness is over.
When I graduated the next Friday, there was no joyful celebration. Mom sat at the back of the school auditorium next to Doreen with the saddest smile I’d ever seen. The expectant look that flashed across her face when I started walking toward her dissolved into one of pain. She shook her head no and blew me a kiss that ended as a sorry little wave. I turned away and walked home with Dad and my aunts, Susie and Elaine. Ran to my room and yanked off the new dress I never wanted to see again and hung it on a hook at the back of my closet. Tugged my favorite Cyndi Lauper T-shirt over my head and picked up the valentine Mom made for Dad and me the winter I was six. A white rectangle with a sprinkling of tiny red hearts scattered around an India ink sketch of three faces, Dad’s and mine and her own, and the word love written a dozen times in the same black ink along the four edges of the card. I’d kept it on my bedside table ever since and looked at it every morning, secure in my belief that the hearts surrounding our family would hold us together forever. I flopped back onto my bed and pressed the valentine against my chest. Maybe these past eleven days are just a bad dream. I closed my eyes and let the past float in.
The Beginning
June 5, 1979. My mother pulled the blinds up to the top of the window, and morning sun poured in and flooded the double bed where I sat watching her prepare for the day. I was five years old and I idolized her. She knew the real name of every color. Told me the pink comforter I had pulled up to my chin was rose blush on the top and rose madder underneath. And she taught me all the shades of blue—the tie Dad wore to work was called Prussian blue and the sky was azure and the pond in the Bronx Botanical Garden was ultramarine. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She’s smarter and kinder and more beautiful than anyone in the whole world.
Everything about her was soft. Her shiny auburn hair, the chestnut color of her eyes, the sound of her voice, the clothes she wore. She pulled on a dark purple leotard—she called the color aubergine—and a pale gray jersey skirt that fell into curves around the hem. Then took a pair of soft black Capezio shoes from the closet and began a story I’d heard before, “In October of 1968, they were on display in Macy’s window. I went inside and tried them on. They were perfect. I wanted them so bad. I saved for seven months and bought them to wear at my high school graduation.” She treasured the shoes, wore them every day. Cleaned and conditioned the leather with saddle soap once a week and replaced the soles every second year. She slipped them on and held up one graceful foot. “Look, ten years old and better than new.”
Her next step, spritzing Rive Gauche perfume in an S-shape in front of her and walking through the fragrance that floated on the air, felt like magic. I breathed in the scent and said, “Tell me again about the real Rive Gauche, Mom.”
“It means left bank. It’s in Paris—on the side of the river where the artists live. Someday, we’ll go there.”
“You and me and Dad.”
“I’m not sure about Dad. He doesn’t think a trip to Paris sounds so good.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. People like different things.” She turned to the mirror and twisted her hair back into a bun at the nape of her neck. Only her bangs fell loose in a wave across her forehead and down the right side of her face. “Okay, now it’s your turn.” She lifted me off the bed and untangled my sleep tousled curls, first with her fingers and then with a wooden comb. “Hair black as ebony,” she whispered before taking on a businesslike tone. “There you go. Now run and get dressed. Then a quick breakfast. I have an eight o’clock haircut client so I’m dropping you off early at preschool.”
In my bedroom, I pulled on blue jean shorts, a striped tee-shirt, and my new summer shoes. I ran back to Mom and pointed a finger at each red sneaker.
“You tied them all by yourself. Let’s leave a note for Daddy.” She tore a sheet of paper from a pad in the kitchen and picked up her sketching pencil. With a few quick strokes she drew a shoe with a swoosh on its side and a big lopsided bow. One dangling lace formed a line of curvy words across the bottom of the page. She ran her finger under them and read aloud, “Look what Laura did.”
“You’re proud, aren’t you? Should we have a celebration?”
“Absolutely. Pizza at Tony’s. And then ice cream.”
I pumped my fist. “Yay!” And hurried through my frosted flakes.
Mom loved celebrations, and we had lots in the years that followed. The day she got a thank-you card with a twenty dollar bill from a client, twice when Dad got elected driver of the month at work, when I read the whole book of All of a Kind Family to Aunt Susie using a different voice for each character, and every time I brought home my report card.
On a day in July when I was eight years old, my family’s happiness reached a pinnacle. Two deliverymen from Sid’s Home Furnishings carried out the furniture from my parents’ room and left them a new dresser and bed and side tables. Dad walked through our front door at noon, bursting with pride at his surprise for Mom. He hugged her. “No more hand-me down bedroom furniture for you, Carla. At last you’ve got something good enough for you.”
She twirled in a circle in front of the dresser’s tall mirror and threw her arms around him. “I have the most beautiful bedroom in the Bronx.”
I looked at my perfect happy parents and wondered, How come our family gets to be so lucky?
A month later, the same two men returned at nine in the morning as Mom was leaving for work and carried off the new bedroom furniture. “Mom, why? Why did they take it all back?”
“It’s too expensive. We can’t afford the payments.” Tears filled her eyes. “Daddy’s going to...
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 22.11.2024 |
|---|---|
| Sprache | englisch |
| Themenwelt | Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen |
| ISBN-13 | 979-8-3509-7364-8 / 9798350973648 |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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