Great Big Beautiful Life(57)

They named her Margaret Grace Ives, after Bernie’s late mother, and by the time they left the hospital, Photoplay had already published her name. Normally, the fan magazine only concerned itself with actors, but Freddy was handsome and charismatic, and Bernie was something of a novelty, so they’d reached a certain level of celebrity, which their daughter inherited, along with everything else that came with being an Ives.

For the first two months of Margaret’s life, her father rarely left her or her mother’s side, but eventually he had to get back to work.

Bernie missed directing, missed being at the studio every single day. But she also missed her daughter every time she fell asleep. She wondered how she would survive having her soul split like that. She knew for certain she could never be fully contented again as long as she lived. Half of her would always be elsewhere.

Three years later, Laura Rose Ives was born, and she was Margaret’s polar opposite.

As a newborn, Margaret would wail and cry every time she wanted anything, and so she and Bernie quickly developed an unspoken language. At four months old, before Margaret could crawl, she was already trying to figure out how to stand up.

Laura was a quiet little blob. Watchful, curious, but not demanding. Margaret had her mother’s sandy hair and her father’s tan skin, whereas Laura had her father’s thick black waves and her mother’s creamy complexion.

As the girls grew, Laura was cautious, careful, a little shadow trailing down the long marble halls after her reckless older sister.

Bernie worried about her. She worried about both of them, for different reasons.

She waited until Margaret turned five and Laura was two before broaching the subject of going back to work, late one night as she and Freddy lay curled together beneath the deep blue and gold canopy of their bed, their reading lamps still on. He asked if she was sure. “Won’t you miss them?”

“Of course I will,” she said. “Don’t you?”

And that settled it. He knew he couldn’t keep her cooped up there, half of her nurtured while the other went bone dry.

It took several months for her to get a new contract. Freddy, of course, wanted her to come back to Royal, but she’d wound up at Universal instead. At first, they met for walks twice a week, but she was making up for lost time, which meant working more, working harder.

That was when the fighting between Margaret’s parents had begun. It was also where we left off for the day.

The recording ends and I pull my earbuds out, set my phone and notebook aside, watching a young family building a sandcastle just out of reach of the tide, digging a moat all around it so that when the water finally does rise, it won’t knock the whole thing over.

I mean, probably it will, but at least they’ll know they tried.

Once, years ago, when I was in college and taking an entry-level writing class, I “interviewed” my dad as part of an assignment.

He told me about growing up in Oklahoma, and about seeing the ocean for the first time when he moved out to California, where he and my mother had met when they were just out of college.

I wish I’d recorded that whole conversation. I didn’t. But I took notes, and I wrote the paper, and a couple of things stuck in my memory, clear and sharp.

When he saw the ocean for the first time, he said it terrified him. Made him dizzy and almost nauseated, and just truly, deeply afraid. That anything could be that big. That powerful. That natural and uncontrollable, something society couldn’t take credit for and could never fully tame either. He told me he’d only ever felt that way two other times in his life.

“When your sister was born,” he said, “and then you.”

“Gee, thanks, Dad. That’s great to hear,” I replied, and he grinned. He was a grinner, like me.

“You’re supposed to be learning to write nonfiction, right? I’ve got to tell you the truth. Those were the three times in my life I felt true wonder. And it was so much to take in, it felt like my body might spiderweb with cracks. Honestly. And then I was happy too, if I didn’t mention that.”

“You sure didn’t,” I said.

“I was getting to it,” he joked. “But it wasn’t the first feeling. The first feeling was Holy shit, this is a whole person. How is that even possible?”

He didn’t swear a lot, because Mom didn’t like swearing, but sometimes, when it was the two of us, he’d throw in a good shit or hell, for emphasis.

Why didn’t I record him? I think again, with a deep pulse of pain.

And just as fast, I feel a breeze ripple over my back, and it’s hard not to believe—or maybe just hope—that maybe I didn’t need to record it.

That maybe he’s here, his atoms redistributed, the ashes we sprinkled in the river near our house now mixed with the sand all around me, his love permanent and intractable as ever.

Love isn’t something you can cup in your hands, and I have to believe that means it’s something that can’t ever be lost.

I grab my phone again and open a text thread I’ve let sit empty for two years now. The one with just Dad’s number.

I want to say the perfect thing, in this missive to no one, but even with all the time in the world, I can’t find the words. The closest I get is a two-word message.


Thank you.



Right after I send it, my phone vibrates, and I almost choke on my tongue.