Cool, Calm & Contentious - Merrill Markoe [5]
I asked my father if he wanted to keep them, assuming he would say yes.
“Naaah,” he said. “You want ’em? Take ’em. What the hell am I gonna do with ’em?”
I tried to imagine the enormousness of the life adjustment my dad was suddenly facing … forty years of marriage vaporized. Maybe more intimacy was too overwhelming for him right now?
Then it was time to make the seven-hour drive down the coast of California, back to my home in Los Angeles. With my dog Stan in the passenger seat beside me, and the diaries in a bag on the backseat, I rolled my old Honda down the long driveway of my parents’ home. A kind of emotional terror swept over me. What secrets would the diaries reveal? Would she explain how she really felt about me? What if she had left behind evidence of a hidden other identity? If she really vented all her dark anger once and for all, could I handle her pain, her self-doubts, her fears? Or even more unnerving: What if she talked about her sex life with my dad? Could I handle that?
I’d never been sure of my mother’s birth year, because she’d intentionally kept that hidden. But by every possible calculation, these diaries, which spanned 1959 through 1989, began when she was in her early thirties. Who was my mother back then?
As soon as I got home I poured myself a big glass of wine, sat down on my sofa, and emptied the stack of diaries onto the cushions beside me. I took a deep breath, preparing to have a real talk with my mother for the very first time.
Before I got started, though, I decided to give my newly single dad a call to offer a little comfort and support.
“Dad, are you okay?” I said, after I heard him say hello. I was relieved by how normal his voice sounded.
“Listen, Merrill,” he said, “I’ve just made myself a hot cup of coffee. I can’t talk right now. My coffee will get cold.” Then he hung up.
So that was that.
I decided to read the diaries in chronological order, starting with the multicolored floral-fabric-covered one dated May 6, 1959.
The opening entry began on the eve of their “first trip abroad on The Queen Mary.” All of their relatives and friends had turned out for “a gay noisy Bon Voyage party. The Jeroboam of Piper Heidsieck champagne was gone in no time.” I flinched a little at the use of the word “Jeroboam.” It was so extremely Ronny Markoe. “Then we wandered aimlessly around the ship,” she continued. “Tomorrow has the promise of adventure!”
How endearing! My mother, a girlish young wife … off to sea for the first time and seeking the promise of adventure! She sounded similarly energized a week later, on May 13, when she first encountered Switzerland. “What a sense of smallness is yours when you look out at the sheer glory of the Alps.” How nice! She and my dad were having a good time, but not only that … did I detect a hint of self-reflection?
By May 20, I started to hear a more familiar voice:
ROME, MAY 20, 1959
Went to see Michelangelo’s Moses at St. Peter’s. So dark in church could barely see. Then to Alfredo Alfa Serofa for dinner. Looks like a Roman SARDI’s. Food was very tasty but service was so quick you felt like you were being rushed. As I put a last piece of lettuce in my mouth the waiter rushed to remove my salad plate. Told him to go away. As we ate a last piece of the main course, the waiter asked (with our mouths still full) what we wanted for dessert. I told him to go away and come back in 5 minutes. I had scampi alla griglia which in a better atmosphere at a slower tempo would have tasted much better.
I kept reading and reading. From 1962 to 1988 my parents really got around. They went to every country in Europe, as well as Japan, China, and Africa. But not too many ports of call escaped my mother’s critical view.
MADRID, MAY 2, 1962
Madrid is a very large city, very bustling and not very pretty. This morning about 11:00 we went to see the Royal Palace, residence of the Spanish kings until their deposure. Outside the building is ugly, grey, forbidding, large and ornate. Inside we