Growing Up Laughing_ My Story and the Story of Funny - Marlo Thomas [101]
Then the dining room, which faced the street, with the windows that let in such a pretty light through the panes. I could almost see the U-shaped table, built that way so that no one sat with their back to the huge, wall-to-wall carving of the Last Supper that hung there. Me always on Dad’s right. On Sunday after Mass, we’d have to close the drapery so the movie guide buses wouldn’t look in at us having our brunch. “Monkeys in a cage,” Dad would say.
I walked up the stairs and remembered Mom sitting on the top step, holding baby Tony in her arms that Christmas, just two weeks after he was born, so he could be a part of our Christmas morning.
I went into my parents’ bedroom. It didn’t look like it did on all those school mornings when I’d go in for my allowance, or something extra to go to the movies with Camille and Moya, or to negotiate staying out later than they wanted me to. But the bed was in the same place as it was when we used to climb into it to keep Mom company when Dad was away.
What I hadn’t expected was the burst of emotion I felt when I walked into Dad’s bathroom–dressing room, where I used to sit on the edge of the tub, watching him shave and listening to his stories about being on the road, or telling him how I felt about something that no one else seemed to understand. It was the room most untouched by the new owners—the “oatmeal”-colored tile (Mom called it that), the big glass shower with the tile bench inside, the pane-glass window overlooking the street, where I would glance at our circle driveway and the brick house across from ours. Oh, how many times I had sat there transfixed and laughing and happy to be with him. Dad’s bathroom. How funny that it was this room that held the sweetest memories of my childhood home.
I couldn’t stop weeping, but I was glad I had come. Because for those few moments, the flowers, the eulogies, the box that held him were washed away, and I was transported, and as close to him again as I could get.
I went downstairs, and Terre and Tony looked as I must have. Drained. But it was good. We had made a visit to relive, not just to bury, our father. We were ready to go back and finish the ritual at home.
Chapter 50
Mother and Marge
After my father died, I brought my mother to New York to stay with me and Phil for a while. She didn’t want to sleep alone in a room, so we thought it would be good for her to invite her old friend, Marge Durante, to come along with her.
Jimmy Durante, the legendary comedian, had left Marge widowed many years before. She and my mother had always been close friends, and now Marge was a great comfort to Mom.
We took walks in Central Park, Mother and Marge in their boxy mink coats, looking every bit like that other era they came from. We even took a carriage ride. They loved it, but Mom felt sorry for the horses.
One day, they disappeared from our apartment for a few hours, and I became worried. When they finally got back, I asked them where they had been.
“We walked over to the Copa, just to take a look at it from the outside,” Mom told me. I was very touched by that.
“Did it look like it used to?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Mother said. “Back then, we only saw it at night.”
A few days later, Phil invited Mother and Marge to a taping of his show. He said he’d also like to introduce them in the audience. Mother was against the idea. She didn’t want a fuss—she just didn’t feel up to it. Phil tried to persuade her by telling her that people would love to see her and Marge—they had been married to men who many people remembered with great affection.
Mother remained reluctant, so I told Phil not to push her. She’d been doing pretty