Dwelling
Anne Noonan
My mother handed me the dusty, sticky box. It was especially sticky at the edges where its covering was peeling off, 1970s-era contact paper, brown-and-white gingham. The box was an old file-card container, made to hold 4" x 6" cards, proudly proclaiming on its bottom: Made in the USA. The box held my childhood postcard collection, which had been out of my possession for almost 20 years. It hadn't come to college with me, nor to the five Boston-area apartments I'd lived in since college. But there I was–a married, home-owning, Ph.D.-holding, mother of a four-year-old–pleased that the box still made the same noise upon opening. The sound wasn't the eerie squeaking of un-oiled hinges, but the harsh popping of stuck metal being forced to unstick. It was a small explosion in the hands.
My mother had found the box while clearing out the house where we used to live, getting it ready to be sold. Address: Marble Street, South End of Springfield, urban Massachusetts. Description: two-family house; near downtown, buses, and leafy park with baseball fields and pools. Owners: Mary and James Coffey, my aunt and uncle, who lived on the second floor. Other occupants: my parents, my seven older siblings, and I, who lived on the first floor and in bedrooms in the finished attic. Conditions: crowded, but not necessarily chaotic, except when my energies or passions took over. My behavioral continuum: Spirited to annoying to downright obnoxious. My emotional repertoire: Euphoria, outrage, silliness, angst. Here come the waterworks, they’d say. She’ll cry if you look at her the wrong way, they’d say. Here comes Sarah Bernhardt, they'd say.
***
There are hundreds of postcards in my collection, 219 to be exact, really jammed in there. Some are smaller than others, some have scalloped edges. Some have one image–a lighthouse, the Basilica in Venice, the elegant lobby of the Elbow Beach Surf Club. Others feature a montage–three medieval buildings in Cork, five castle-like structures in Heidelberg. Several are from friends on vacations with parents at Myrtle Beach, Hampton Beach, or Cape Cod. There's a set from Hong Kong–never written upon–still with its exotic peppery smell, different from the muted mustiness of the rest. There are cards from the United Nations, Mount Rushmore, the Eiffel Tower. There are cards from relatives who traveled to places that had seemed so glamorous–Kansas City, Prince Edward Island, San Diego.
Some of the postcards in my collection had been sent to me or to my family, or to relatives who knew about my collection and passed them on. Others my sister Mary and I had sent to friends from our Cape Cod vacations and then–what?–demanded back upon our return? Some are more puzzling: the Hong Kong collection in particular. Many of the postcards feature that standard travel language: not quite telegraphic, but clipped and rhythmic, not a subjective pronoun or article in sight. “Did some sightseeing today.” “Hope to canoe during week.” “Taking in boat cruise tonight.” “John’s sister arriving on weekend.” There's so little space for writing on these postcards; the senders in my collection seem hamstrung. Or maybe they were liberated by it. Was it "I" or "We" hoping to canoe later in week? Was that boat cruise a shared adventure, or a grab for some time alone? And what about John's sister's visit? Was it a blessing to lack the room to say that the visit wasn't exactly welcomed?
I also found several postcards that were sent to me from friends who didn't actually exist. I know this because of the handwriting. It’s mine alright, but it's not the way I usually wrote. Did I write with my left hand? Did I write in all-caps to disguise my handwriting? Did I write slowly, slowly, slowly, instead of my usual manic scribbling? The first forgery, probably when I was 10 or so, was a Joyeux Noël greeting from a Parisian pen pal who struggled with her English. “My dearest Anne. How are you? Merry Christmas. How is your class of French? My American class is very good. Please send me pictures of your America so I can see the sights that you see daily. Yvonne."
Why did I do this? Why did I write on a blank postcard, then tuck it back into my collection? Did I crave a Parisian pen pal? Did I want my family to think, in the case of my untimely death, that I’d lived a more interesting life than they ever imagined? Maybe I just couldn't stand all that empty space on the blank postcards. Maybe I hated the absence of a narrative, so I created one. Plausible. But what about the other forgeries, written a few years later, from imaginary lovers? What about those wine-loving fellas, soaking up history or sunshine? What about the sarcastic Tony, the generous Sammy, the rakish Greg? Did I actually crave a lover at such a young age? Granted, I had already clocked in some sneak peeks at my brothers' Playboys. I had investigated their copies of The Betsy, and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex. Maybe I needed a little bit more.
Here's my Tony, writing about Boston's Faneuil Hall Marketplace: “Anne: This is one of the many exciting things one sees on his way to work–what a life. But really, I’m doing very well here and should tie up all by Saturday. Keep the wine chilled for me. Love ya’ –Tony.” Then Sammy, writing from Bermuda: “Anne: Having a splendid time here but miss you. Weather, wine, and food excellent. Picked up a great gift for you. Can’t wait to return to my passionate lover. All yours, Sammy.” And here's Greg in Quebec City: “Anne: I’m having a fantastic time here. The weather has been bad, but who needs the sun to party? I hope when I get back that all will go well between us. Please forget last Sunday–I’m trying to. I love ya’ more than anyone else, and you know that as well as I. See ya’ on the 25th. Greg.”
***
Several weeks after my mother returned the box to me, I found a postcard that Uncle Jim had sent to me. Not to Ed and Lil and kids, or [name deleted] Family, just to me. Postmark: South Bend, Indiana. Date: October 14, 1978. I was 15; he was 60. I have no memory of this postcard, no clues from which to draw. I can't deduce; I can only surmise. I must have heard that he was traveling to Notre Dame, his alma mater, for a football game. Knowing that my collection lacked a card from Indiana, I probably demanded that he send me one, repeating the demand, insisting that he not forget. Only two words appear in the message space: "I remembered." Several weeks later I went through the box again, this time with a fine-toothed comb. I came across another forgotten one, the same South Bend postmark, but mailed one day later. The message: "Just in case I forgot."
Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim had no children. She worked as a nurse, he was a lawyer. They had winter vacations in Puerto Rico, and spent most summers in their Cape Cod home. They always seemed to have time for me. They took my side whenever I was in trouble with the nuns at school, for disrupting class again, or telling another dirty joke at recess. Uncle Jim gave them nicknames. Sister Dorothy James and Sister Nora James became “The James Sisters.” The upright Miss Sharpe was “Sharpie.” Miss Piscinari? “The Fisherman.” They also sided with me in disputes with my parents. I suppose partly they were tickled that my autocratic and difficult father, Aunt Mary's younger brother, finally had such a questioning child after seven more-or-less cooperative ones. I knew they liked me, that they actually enjoyed me. In the vernacular of my family, they spoiled me rotten.
Uncle Jim was my first paying client. Lemonade stands? Those were for other kids. I had a detective agency in the basement. I specialized in lost items and hoped one day for a missing-person case. Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew were my guides; they always got it right. I tailed the elderly people who lived in the apartment buildings around Marble Street. I knew some of their names, which units they lived in. I kept meticulous notes on one Marge Lebutis, alias “Grey Ponytail.” I worked alone. My oldest siblings were gone much of the time–at their part-time jobs, then away at college, then getting married and relocating. My siblings closest in age were around more, but they didn't always invite me for the walk downtown or a game of basketball. So when Uncle Jim approached me with a case, I was glad for the work. He handed me a stamped envelope, and asked if I could find him a mailbox. Disposition: solved, corner of Marble and Main. Expenses: zero. Income: a quarter.
***
When all of my siblings and I had moved out of the house, my parents, Aunt Mary, and Uncle Jim aged-in-place. Each couple stayed pretty much to themselves, and Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim spent more and more time at the Cape house. When my first job after college presented me with a paid vacation, I had no money for an expensive vacation, no car, so I took the train down to the Cape. Every morning I'd grab a book and a towel, throw together a lunch, strap a beach chair to my bike, and ride a mile to the beach. Hours later, when the beach emptied out, I'd head back to the house to make dinner. Aunt Mary's health was beginning to fail. Pain and fatigue caused her to be in bed a lot, but she couldn't stand being left out of any action or socializing. When she heard the pots and pans clanging, she'd come into the kitchen and try to drink a glass of beer. Later at night, when she heard popcorn popping, she'd come out for a bowl. Sometimes she could sit with Uncle Jim and me for a while, and sometimes not.
When I was 22, living in Boston, Uncle Jim developed an infection in his brain that changed his personality, and left him confused and wandering. He was a missing person for a few days before being found by police, sitting at a gas station near Fenway Park, 100 miles away from home. He lived in the neurology unit at Beth Israel from August to November. I visited him almost every day after work, taking the D train from Government Center to the Longwood medical area. I’d stay for an hour, sometimes longer, certain that my presence and attention were healing. I was confident that my childhood status as “favorite” had translated into being the one, after Aunt Mary, who knew him the best. My oldest brother, Tom, who also lived in Boston, commented in the lobby one night about Uncle Jim's new directness. "When he’s ready for you to leave," he said, "he just thanks you for coming." A flash of shame took over me. Uncle Jim had said those words to me on every single one of my visits. All along, I'd been interpreting them as pure gratitude, a signal that he wanted me to stay longer.
Uncle Jim recovered–it was Aunt Mary who died first. She was 70, I was 23. For the first time I felt the vague panicky sensation–almost a vertigo–that would assail me any time family elders died. It was as if a protective layer between me and the heavens had cracked somehow, leaving me exposed and more available for the taking. I mourned her as an individual, and I mourned the splitting of the twosome, the unit. They had always seemed so connected. They'd commuted to work together; they'd grocery shopped together. Everyone always said their names together, and her name had always come first. I'd accepted this unspoken convention as an homage to her, she who had raised my father and younger siblings after their parents had died young. But at her funeral I had to wonder if she had felt like an afterthought much of the time. Uncle Jim had always been so much more fun: less strict, more fanciful, less irritable. When he'd pronounce our pediatrician's name as "Twibble," I would scream with laughter, but she would glare at him, giving the long-I correction: "Twible. Like the Bible." At the Cape, she had expected hospital corners when we made up the beds. He'd bought us Lucky Charms for breakfast. In the warm water of Cape Cod Bay, when he was in his 50s, he'd let us stand on his shoulders and then dive off. She'd anxiously shriek from the shore, Jim Coffey, you're a god-damned fool!
My father was the second to die. He was 74; I was 34. I don't know who decided which of his eight children would deliver his eulogy at the funeral. I only know that I wasn't involved in the decision, and thankfully, I wasn't the choice. I'd been crying off-and-on for days, the sadness simply leaking out of me. Sometimes, the tears came when recalling my failed attempts to tell my father that he mattered to me. For example, after he'd retired, I'd given him a copy of Daniel Levinson's The Seasons of a Man's Life. "What do you know about my life?" was all he'd said, tossing the book aside. But mostly I cried when remembering his sense of humor. "Run into the roundhouse, Nellie," he used to say, apropos of nothing, "he can't corner you there." I had an especially rough moment during the family's private goodbye at the funeral home. My sister Sandy told me that during that moment, Uncle Jim had moved across the room to stand behind me. “He almost reached out for you," she said. "He almost put his hand on your shoulder." But then he'd backed up a little, as if to give me space. "He did stay close," she said, "right behind you."
***
When Uncle Jim died, almost 20 years ago now, it was decided that I should deliver the eulogy. It felt like a promotion. I wrote it the night before, right after the evening wake had ended. I bought a cheap cardboard notebook at the 7-11 next to the funeral home, probably a new pen for luck. Back at my in-laws’, drinking a beer, I started writing, hit a groove, rewrote, and kept going until I was done. I said that he was like a shadow, always there but silent. I said that he had spent his life helping people. I joked that, now that I was a mother, I found it much less charming that he always took the side of children in disputes. The eulogy was okay, and I pulled off its delivery, but I worried that it misrepresented him. Uncle Jim never liked to be the center of attention, never liked being fussed about. He was someone, after all, who could get away with a two-word postcard. What if my fussing was really all about me? What if my need to process his life was antithetical to the way he lived it?
In addition to these worries, I paid another price for that eulogy. I was hell-bent on earning this promotion within the family, on showing everyone the new me. I was determined that the old me would not return–that spirited, overwrought, emotionally uneven girl. I would not break down, unable to continue. There would be no drama. I would deliver a tribute worthy of the person it sought to honor. And I think I did. But the amount of sucking back I had to do, just to get through the reading, cost me. It seemed there were two options for grief. The first was to cry and cry and cry, then peel away the film of sadness and move on. Then, you're able to choose when a memory visits. You can welcome it in, with a wiped-away tear, or a brief chuckle. The other option was to keep all the grief inside, never letting it out. In that case, you have no control whatsoever over when the grief visits you, or in what form, or with what strength, or for how many years to come.
***
I disturbed the peace one day in Uncle Jim's kitchen on Marble Street. He had just given me Aunt Mary’s engagement diamond, saying "She would have wanted you to have it." I knew what was expected of me: take the ring, thank him very much, then change the subject. But I made a different decision. I let loose a torrent of words, hundreds of them, really jammed in. I told him how much the two of them had meant to me. I told him how cherished they had always made me feel. I told him how my life could have taken a much more troubled turn. "You know my family life wasn't miserable," I told him, "but I was sad and lonely a lot of the time. I always felt like I was doing something wrong." What if the two of them had made the difference, I asked? What if I had turned out well mostly because of them? He looked a bit uncomfortable and didn't say anything, but he didn't stop me from talking.
Another moment of gushing words: This one in the kitchen of the Cape house, husband and toddler in tow. I had cooked a huge Sunday dinner for all of us: roast beef, asparagus, roasted potatoes, butternut squash, rolls. "Just like your mother would do," Uncle Jim had said, with an appreciative wink. After dinner, I washed the dishes while he stayed at the table watching the Red Sox on television. It was just the two of us now; my husband and daughter out for a walk. I knew some things about aging, then, back in my 30s. I was months away from defending my dissertation, my gumshoe days having evolved into the more well-heeled world of behavioral science research. "You're a real survivor," I told him, "to have lived so many years beyond life expectancy." Left unsaid were the names of those he had survived: his parents, of course, but also his brothers, and his wife. "People like you are amazing." There was quiet for a moment, until he shifted a bit in his maple captain's chair. What was I expecting? Did I think he would agree that he was a marvel? Was I expecting appreciation that I understood him so well? "Really," he said. It wasn't quite a question; he'd said it too flatly. But he did raise an eyebrow when he looked at me to say, "It can get pretty lonely, you know, when you're the only one left."
***
Uncle Jim, not my father, drove my mother to the hospital the day before I was born. The trip happened on New Year’s Day, in advance of her scheduled morning Cesarean. I had always loved this story, but it had never made much sense to me. If my father had been the driver, Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim could have stayed with my siblings until he returned. That arrangement would have let Uncle Jim keep watching the Rose Bowl or the Orange Bowl. My father, never much of a college football fan, could have helped my mother settle in, wishing her luck for the big event with a quick kiss on the forehead. But that’s not the way it happened. As a child, I had asked plenty of questions to complete this narrative. I had dug for clues. But I'd only received clipped, unsatisfactory answers: That's just the way it was, or Who remembers? or Don't dwell on it.
I believe that Uncle Jim and I became fast friends that day, during the ride to the hospital. I know it's not the most logical tale. Uncle Jim most likely drove a huge Oldsmobile back then, probably six feet wide, with considerable space between him and my mother in the front seat. Even in a smaller car, propriety would have kept them far apart, especially on this uniquely intimate OB-GYN errand. And they both would have been bundled up against the January cold. But despite all those likely realities, he felt it. At a red light, maybe, at the corner of Chestnut and Carew, he felt it, just a smidge off to his right. He felt my little elbow, nudging him. He felt the greeting from his little buddy, the one who would become his favorite. He felt her bumping up against him, all winks and conspiratorial camaraderie.
***
It’s my birthday today. I'll celebrate later, but for now I'm alone, finishing a novel written by a friend, drinking coffee. A noise to my left catches my attention. I'm not startled. I assume that my son, home from college, has awoken in the next room. But I am surprised when I look to the left and see that the wooden-and-stained-glass doors of Uncle Jim’s bookcase, now mine, have popped opened on their own. The sound I had heard was one of the doors hitting the wall.
The bookcase is an old piece; probably almost a century old. Maybe the wood around the screw-and-hinge setup has given way. Maybe the dry heat of my small living room, in contrast to the two-degree January air outside, has made the wood shrink. I know there's a reasonable explanation, but my reasoning gives way to magical thinking. I can't help myself.
Maybe, I think, this is Uncle Jim's birthday message to me. Maybe it's a visit, as some of my more spiritually inclined friends might suggest. Maybe this is just another version of his arms playfully swinging open.
So what's a girl to do?
I'm glad that nobody is here to see this; it's a good thing my son is still asleep. But I'm equally convinced it's the right thing to do. I bend my arm and I raise it slightly. I move my elbow towards the bookcase, and return the greeting. I deliver a "right back atcha" nudge into the air. And then I stop what I'm doing and put my book down. I need to go and check this out. I need to try and figure out what caused the disturbance.
Anne Noonan
Anne Noonan teaches Psychology (including the Psychology of Gender) at a public university north of Boston. Her creative nonfiction work has appeared in Blackbird, Longridge Review, Prick of the Spindle, SNReview, BoomerLitMag, and Soundings East (the latter under the pseudonym Evie Hartnick).