Then Again - Diane Keaton [93]
It all comes back to the same old thing, Mom. I wish we could talk. I wish I could hear what you might want to tell me from the other side of nowhere. Your last lesson, the one I can’t bear to acknowledge and refuse to identify, is beginning to take hold. I think I know what you want to say from THEN. That’s where you are, isn’t it? You’re in THEN. From there I bet you want to tell me to lift my hands off the handlebars of the bike and let go. You want to say, “Diane, don’t cover your ears; listen. Don’t close your eyes; look. Don’t shut your mouth; open it wide and speak.” You want to say, “Dear Diane, my firstborn, take a deep breath, be brave, and let go. Release your hands from their grip on the bike, lift them up and fly.”
I’m trying, Mom, but it goes against every instinct I possess. I promise you one thing though. I promise to unleash Duke and Dexter from the stranglehold of my need before it’s too late. I promise to give them their freedom no matter how much I want them to hang on. I promise to let go of you too, the you I created for the benefit of me. I only wish that once, just once, I had the courage to say what I felt as I averted my eyes and waved goodbye. You see, Mom, it was always you. It was you for as long as long is.
Where Are They Now?
Yesterday, Nick Reid photographed Mom’s journal from 1968 on a tabletop he devised in Duke and Dexter’s playroom. The cover of the black-ringed binder is a collage filled with photographs of Randy, Robin, Dorrie, and me in gangster getups, à la Bonnie and Clyde. “It’s a Great Year So Far” is pasted at the bottom left-hand corner. “Cut Loose” is at the top right. On the title page inside are the words WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Here’s where we are, Mom. Robin is sixty. Can you believe she’s been married to Rickey Bevington for twenty-seven years? Impossible, right? They still live on their forty-seven-acre farm in Sharpsburg, Georgia. Her baby, Jack, is going to college, and twenty-one-year-old Riley has a new baby named Dylan. Robin continues to carry on your penchant for collecting stray dogs and cats. She has thirteen.
Dorrie wakes up to a perfect view of the San Gabriel mountain range, like you used to when you were a girl. She loves her tree house high on top of a hill in Silver Lake. As the CEO of Monterey Garage Designs, she remains a premier dealer as well as collector of the American West, specializing in Monterey furniture. She loves to drive to the Tubac, Arizona, home with her dogs Cisco and Milo. You would be proud of her, Mom.
Randy still has that rusty Toyota van Dad gave him. It’s been sitting in his carport for fifteen years. Typical, right? His new apartment in Belmont Village is jammed with what must be thousands of collages, and books, and torn-out magazines and weird frames, and paintbrushes and glue, and, well, ephemera everywhere. He still keeps his poems in the oven. I finally got him on the phone the other day. You know what he said? He said he’s never been happier. How about that, Mom?
I’m okay, but it’s Christmas, and your ashes are in the back of my Tahoe Hybrid. We’re driving you to Tubac, where Robin, Dorrie, and I will spread your remains next to Dad’s. I found an old tin cross at Architectural Salvage in Minneapolis last fall. We painted your name across the surface. “Dorothy Deanne Keaton Hall. Beloved Mother to daughter Dorrie, daughter Diane, son Randy, daughter Robin.” You’ll be overlooking the Santa Rita mountain range up in the high desert along with Dad and his traveling companion.
I’m on the road with Duke, my