That fall, Becky’s mother became real to her, as a person of independent capability, in a way she hadn’t been before. She made two long trips to New York, where Shirley was getting radiation. When Becky asked if she could go there herself, her mother not only didn’t discourage her but said it would be a wonderful gift to her aunt. But Shirley didn’t want Becky to come, didn’t want her to see her looking the way she did, didn’t want her to remember her like that. Becky could come in the spring, when the treatments were behind her and she was more like herself. If everything went well, the two of them would then have the trip of a lifetime in the historic capitals of Europe.
She died alone in a room at Lenox Hill Hospital. There was no funeral. It was like Eleanor Rigby.
When I was younger I thought her elegance was effortless, but when I got to know her better I saw it was anything but. Now I think about all the things she did every day to put a brave face on. All the makeup supplies in her bathroom, her Chanel No. 19 spritzer, the hose she threw out if they got the tiniest run in them, the old white gloves she put on to read the newspaper to keep the ink off her fingers, the gold-rimmed cup she drank her tea from with her pinkie raised like a lady. And for what. Just to maintain her dignity in a world where she went by herself to the theater or a concert. No wonder, I thought, her little routines meant so much to her. She gave me so many insights into my own life but, too, an insight into the lives of people who wake up alone every morning and find the courage to get out of bed and show their face. I was always blessed with having many friends. I was “popular” and sometimes conceited about it. All that changed when Shirley passed away. She gave me new admiration for people who are lonely in the world.
Becky’s mother had gone to New York, one last time, to have Shirley’s body cremated and to deal with her estate. She came home with an old wicker suitcase of Shirley’s that contained a mink stole, the watercolor painting, silver earrings, a gold bracelet, and other keepsakes, all of it for Becky, who wept when her mother showed it to her.
“I understand why you’re crying,” her mother said coldly. “But you shouldn’t romanticize your aunt. She made nothing but mistakes in life. In fact, mistakes may be too kind a word for it.”
“I thought you were sad,” Becky said.
“She was my sister. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her.” Her mother seemed to soften, but only for a moment. “I should have known that people don’t change.”
“What do you mean?”
“Shirley was the kind of woman who has no use for other women. All she wanted was men. And she had plenty of them in her day. Funnily enough, though, none of them stuck around. The good ones figured out in a hurry what kind of person they were dealing with, the bad ones disappointed her, and she was vicious on the subject of homosexuals. I never met the man she actually married, but I gather he had some family money. He left her an annuity when he was killed in the Pacific, and it was a good thing he did, because she wasn’t an actress. She was a pretty face who could memorize her lines. By the time your father and I moved to New York, she was ‘between roles.’ She was still between roles when we left. She lived in a fantasy world where nobody appreciated her talent and the men all either exploited her or disappointed her, but maybe the next man wouldn’t. She was one of the most miserable people I’ve ever known.”
The coldness of this speech shocked Becky. “But it’s so sad,” she said.
“Yes, it is,” her mother said. “That’s why I didn’t mind you going out there in the summer. You have a good head, a good heart, and God knows she was lonely.”
“If she didn’t like other women, then why did she like me?”
“I wondered that myself. But people like her never change.”
Eight months went by before Becky learned the reason for her mother’s coldness. It happened that her birthday, her eighteenth, fell on a Saturday. Jeannie Cross had organized a blowout party that everyone who counted was coming to. Everyone wanted to see Hildebrandt get drunk, which was Jeannie’s stated object and, God help her, Becky’s private intention. Unlike her dissolute younger brother, she’d always been sensitive to her father’s position as a man of the cloth, the unseemliness of a minister’s daughter getting shit-faced, but now she was old enough to vote, and her social instincts told her it was time to mix things up a little. After working the lunch shift at the Grove—she’d quit her florist job and taken a less dorky one, waiting tables—she hurried home to shower and dress and have an early dinner with her family. The parsonage seemed curiously empty. There were October sunbeams in the living room, a fading smell of baked cake. She went up to her room and was startled to see her mother seated on her bed. “You need to come upstairs with me,” she said.