Fiction Ruined My Family - Jeanne Darst [86]
There were the expected hits on my mother’s shelves: the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, How to Quit Drinking Without AA, Sober for Good, Seven Weeks to Sobriety, The Neutral Spirit: A Portrait of Alcohol by friend Berton Roueché. The recovery section also contained the Social Register— we were kicked out in the late ’80s because we never bought the black-and-orange books put out every year. Going through her books reminded me of the book my mother had given her new granddaughter, Louisa, several years before.
After seeing Louisa for the first time my mother had headed out to Kate’s deck to have a cig. Katharine went and put Louisa down for a nap. Coming back inside, Mom announced that she had a present for the baby. Katharine and Mom sat on the couch with Mom rummaging through her bag madly, finally finding the item and pulling it out of her bag and holding it out to Katharine. It was unwrapped. A book traveled from Mom’s to Kate’s hands and Katharine read the title.
“Hannibal by Thomas Harris.”
“Mmm hmm.”
“Hannibal. Like Hannibal the cannibal? Silence of the Lambs? Anthony Hopkins’s character who eats people with fava beans?” Kate asked.
“Right. Did you read the first one?” Mom asked.
“Um, well, no. This is—”
“It’s for the baby,” Mom said.
“Right. For the baby. She’s two months old.”
“I know, sweetie, you’re going to have to read it to her.”
“Right. Thanks, Mom.”
“You’re welcome. It’s really terrific.”
“Yeah. Well, she definitely doesn’t have it.”
Henry came in the door from work.
“Hi, Doris.”
“Hello, Henry. The baby’s beautiful, just beautiful.”
“Aw, thanks, Doris.”
“I have to go. I just came to bring the baby a present.” Mom got up.
Henry put his bag down on the couch. Kate held up the book.
“Hannibal,” Henry read, looking like someone had struck him between the eyes with a park bench. “Like Hannibal the cannibal?”
“Yeah.” Kate glared at him. Henry got up and went to the phone.
“Thanks so much, Doris. Here, let me call the car. I know the fastest one.”
On the shelf below all the how-to-quit-drinking books was a photo album of my mother’s debutante party, the Fleur de Lis Ball. It was like a wedding album, a professional book of about fifty or so photographs of the party at her house. Everything was so displayed back then. People. Soup. Gifts. Cigarettes. I stared at a picture of a long table where presents were displayed with my mother posed in front of it, while behind me Julia took a piss in the bathroom with no door.
Kate and Julia began boxing up the endless parade of silver: silver brushes, rulers, letter openers, trophies from horse shows, platters, picture frames, bowls, trivets, trays, cigarette boxes, cigarette cases, flasks, decanters. All of it engraved. Engravers must have been busier than McCarthy in the ’50s. Ditto for monogrammers. The number of monogrammed linens that my mother had was preposterous. I agreed to take three gigantic boxes of fancy schnoz-blowers, and it is not lost on me that I have inherited a lifetime supply of hankies from the world’s weepiest mother.
“Eek!” Kate screamed and then started huffing immediately. Julia and I rushed over to where she was going through a pile of family photo albums and giant framed portraits.
“What? Mouse?” Julia asked.
“Stay back!” Kate yelped. We froze in our places. “There was this grungy old piece of pink tissue paper stuck in this crappy old photo album from Amagansett and when I barely touched it diamonds came tumbling out and now they’re everywhere!”
“Fuck,” I said, not being a diamond lover so much as just someone who can relate to spilling shit.
“They’re really small, they’re not big like a ring or Mom’s diamond earrings. They’re teeny little diamonds.”
“Like diamond flakes?” Julia asked, putting on her glasses.
“No.” Kate tried desperately to remain calm. “What are diamond flakes? No, they’re diamonds. I’m just saying, there’s a lot of them and they’re very small and this place is a disaster so be really careful moving stuff around.”
We began searching.