A Kick-Ass Fairy: A Memoir (6 page)

At some point, hours or days later, I woke up on the floor of the kitchen with little Kimberly shaking me saying, “Mommy, wake up. Wake up, Mommy.” That incident helped me to realize that I had to live, even if I didn’t want to. I had to go on for Kim.

At this point, Kim had been told that her dad was in heaven. Kim thought heaven was in the sky, so every time she saw a plane she would ask, “Is that where Daddy is?” Not really knowing where her daddy was, as if anyone did, I called up my friend Beverly, who had lost her dad when she was little, and asked her how she was told. She gave me an idea.

Fortunately, that night the sky was clear. I bundled Kim up and we went outside to look at the stars. Together we found the brightest star in the sky. I pointed to it and made sure that she could see it.

I told her, “That star is where your daddy is.”

“Even during the day,” I continued, “Daddy’s star is still there, but hidden by the daylight. Even then, day or night, Daddy can see you and hear you.”

There were no stars in my sky, though. I was still walking around in the dark with the wind knocked out of me. I saw Dave’s ghost in every room. Every corner was filled with memories of stripping wallpaper, painting, laughing, crying, making love. In my nights of insomnia, I poured through a chain-reference Bible, looking for clues about what happens to us when we die.

Finally, on a mid-autumn day while hanging out the laundry, after pleading with the God that I didn’t necessarily believe in that I needed a sign that my Dave was OK, I looked out to the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge across the street from our house, and for the first time in my life saw a double rainbow. I was so excited I grabbed Kim to show her, hysterical that this was the sign, the sign that he was not just OK, he was great. She didn’t understand. I called my mother and told her breathlessly about what had just happened. She responded, “Whatever you need to believe.” She didn’t believe me. Deflated, as I had been so many times by her, I still held some modicum of excitement and a renewed commitment to forge ahead.

My parents kept asking me what I was going to do and why didn’t I move back to their house. I began taking stock of my situation. I finally threw out the rancid clothes I’d slept with and the toothbrush I had contemplated for weeks. But the rest? What was I going to do with a brand new 1983 Silverado three-quarter ton truck, a restored 1953 Chevy pickup in candy apple red, and a 1968 Chevy Camaro SS souped up for racing, not to mention two motorcycles and assorted guns and fishing equipment, a log splitter, and a neglected German short-haired pointer? How was I going to care for three acres and pay rent to my dead husband’s parents?

Somehow, my father-in-law got wind of the fact that I was considering what to do with his son’s stuff, and came to the conclusion that I was preparing to pack up and move on. One Saturday afternoon he stormed into my house without knocking, drunk and raging like a bull.

“My son isn’t even cold in the ground,” he thundered. “You are not going anywhere, and I’ll be damned if you think you are getting rid of any of my son’s stuff,” he exploded like a rapid-fire cannon. “Over my dead body, goddamn it,” he grumbled with the low rumble of a three-pack-a-day smoker.

What seemed to me like an eternity since I last held Dave was only an instant to him. He really scared me. I grabbed Kim and ran upstairs to my room, sitting against the closed door for further protection until I could hear his truck backing out of the driveway, spraying fans of gravel all over the lawn.

My own father suggested that I might want to see a lawyer to determine if I could sue the realtor, the power company, the property owner, the chainsaw manufacturer, and so on.

“After all,” he rationalized, “you’re a widow with a small child to support.”

I think we went to see two lawyers. We learned that the case would be on a contingency basis, where they would take a percentage of any settlement or court award. However, they warned that there was this thing called contributory negligence, where the defendants would try to prove that Dave had some sliding scale of responsibility for his death. They further warned that we would be going after powerful people and companies.

“They’ll try to rip your late husband’s reputation to shreds.” When my in-laws heard of this, they went ballistic.

“You cannot sue the realtor!” screeched my mother-in-law.

“Dad has known Ned his whole life, since grade school in fact, and that is just not the way we do things. You can go anywhere you want, but we still have to live in this town.”

Sometime after the holidays, my mother-in-law commented that I was just like my mother, always concerned about money, and that I pushed Dave too hard. If I hadn’t pushed him so hard, he wouldn’t have taken that job and died.

I was completely crushed. That was it, I realized. I had to get out of there, and get everyone out of my business, and get away from all the pain. Me and Kim, Kim and me—that was all that mattered to me now.

Chapter 6

1985–1987

M
y new life began while I was crossing McCormick Road after getting off the campus bus between Brown College and Monroe Hall. Just like Dorothy’s landing in Oz, in one instant the world became living color again.

It was spring of 1985—a non-particular day, late in the morning, more than a year and half after Dave had died.

Looking around I noticed the light that sparkled through the canopy of old-growth trees. Everything was illuminated. While shielding my eyes, I could hear the birds singing and the wind rustling the new leaves in the trees. There were beautiful flowering trees all around me—dogwoods, pears, cherries, and magnolias. I hadn’t realized that I’d lost the brilliance of my senses for so long, but I was happy for their return.

I continued walking toward the central grounds at the University of Virginia. The distinctive sharp green smell of the boxwoods permeated the air. I inhaled deeply. Having a bit of time before class, I sat down on a bench on the lawn. I looked left up the lawn toward the far end where the Rotunda stood, panning right were five of the pavilions and the many lawn rooms cascading down each side of the great expanse of grass. I had read that the Rotunda, designed by UVA’s founder, Thomas Jefferson, was the cranium, the brain. Back in the early days of the college it housed the library—the repository of accumulated knowledge. As in the beginning, the upper floors of the pavilions were living quarters for some of the professors. The lower floors were originally the classrooms. The lawn rooms in between the architecturally distinct pavilions were for fourth-year students who had applied and were deemed worthy by nature of their leadership skills and contributions to the school. Living on the lawn was considered an honor—even though it meant doing without heat or running water. The University of Virginia was all about tradition and honor.

Behind the five pavilions on each side of the lawn there were the gardens, each unique, flanked by high serpentine brick walls, which were tended by garden societies and clubs. Beyond the gardens were the range rooms for more students, one of which had hosted Edgar Allan Poe as its resident.

This was Jefferson’s academical village. And as of that moment, I was really there.

I saw a young lady in a white bathrobe carrying a towel and a small basket emerging from one of the lawn room doors, which was cluttered with notices. She scurried off around the corner to what I could only assume was a shower.

I couldn’t imagine life in that little lawn room. I lived off campus in a rented three-bedroom townhouse in North Charlottesville with my daughter. Kim attended the Montessori School in town during the day while I took my classes. After class I took the campus bus to the commuter parking lot at Scott Stadium, drove to Kim’s school, volunteered for a few hours to reduce the cost of her tuition, did errands, went home, cooked dinner, did laundry, got her bath ready, read her a story, and then began my homework. I learned to like instant coffee—Taster’s Choice or Folgers in a microwaved cup of hot water. Caffeine was my drug to get through the day, and a half bottle of French cabernet helped me get through the night.

I was excited by the return of my senses, but I was also very tired both physically and mentally. If I’d had someone to catch me, I would have just collapsed. Before the first anniversary of Dave’s death I had decided to get out of Dodge and start over, where no one knew me. I applied to two colleges, and by the anniversary date we had moved and were living in Charlottesville. There was no time to think about the past.

I had originally been admitted to the School of Nursing at the university as an RN BSN candidate. I had accomplished the requirement of 1½ years of their nursing classes by taking the final exam for each class during the summer after we arrived in Charlottesville. I had gotten the payout from Dave’s life insurance policy, but I wanted to maintain the nut of the principal for the future. So I looked into getting a part-time job as a nurse at the hospital to supplement the survivor’s benefit Kim and I got from Social Security. But I calculated that, after paying for a babysitter, my take-home pay would have been about two dollars an hour. So nursing wasn’t going to cut it. I was going to have to figure out a different career, one that let me support my daughter. I researched pre-med programs and medical school and concluded that I wouldn’t be finished until my early forties. I’d also be carrying a lot of debt, and not around enough in the meantime to be my idea of a good single mother.

I dropped my Teaching in Nursing Practice course and switched to the Personal Investing at McIntire, the undergraduate business school at the university. When I first walked into the small, vintage amphitheater for the investing class, it was already in session. The teacher was dressed in khaki trousers, a blue button-down shirt with a diagonally striped tie, and a blazer with brass buttons. He had such a southern accent that at times it was hard to understand him. But he had such an air of old world charm, the appearance of an old southern gentleman, truly a Virginia Cavalier in his modern-day uniform. He reminded me of a smaller version of Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame, with his impeccably groomed snow-white hair and beard.

Over the semester I learned he was still working at an old southern institution, the brokerage firm of Scott and Stringfellow. From him, we learned about the stock market, the bond market, put and call options, how to read the stock section of the paper, the role of the specialist, the market maker, the risk arbitrage play, investing in commodities, and everything you could want to know about forward contracts. Our semester assignment was to get and read Barron’s and The Wall Street Journal and to create a mock portfolio of investments using $2,000 in Monopoly money. I was up to close to $20,000 by the end of the semester and kicking myself for not being willing to risk real money.

The investment class was such a gas that I began taking classes that were prerequisites for the business school—Economics with the legendary Mr. Elzinger, Calculus, Accounting 101 and 102, and Rhetoric.

The day I got my senses back, sitting on that bench, I suddenly realized I would have to rush to Rhetoric—and I was speaking. I ran, seeing all the colors in a blur through teary eyes as I made my way to class.

My persuasive speech that day was on “The Necessity of Seatbelts on School Buses.” This topic was important to me—given that I had miraculously not died after flying out of a moving school bus window at the age of seven. But as I stuttered and umm-ed my way through the argument and supporting data, I paused and noticed most of the class was asleep anyway. So I relaxed.

Later that same spring I was one of the students accepted into the McIntire School of Commerce, the university’s undergraduate business school, from an ocean of applicants. Now I knew I was accepted not because I was already a nurse or a widow. I was actually qualified.

The following fall, moving between classes in the storied old Monroe Hall, I was walking lighter but still felt out of place, being seven or eight years older than the other students. None of them seemed to notice a difference in our ages, although my body language, among other things, indicated I was not dating material.

Over time I became more confident and more assertive, and let my male side run free. In the classroom, the environment fostered competitive teamwork, and I was there to win. The professors welcomed interaction with the students and preferred to be called Mr. or Ms. rather than Professor or Doctor. All classes were geared toward working in groups, giving presentations, and analyzing different business-case scenarios, which seemed impossible at first but then became solvable.

As Kim moved from toddlerhood to preschool she became more and more feminine. She wanted her straight, long hair done up with curls, bows, jeweled barrettes, and ribbons. She insisted on wearing dresses, of which she had quite a supply from Grandma, Dave’s mother—the Polly Flinders smocked kind with embroidery, ruffles, and petticoats. Her patent leather Mary Janes completed the look. She twirled around the house pretending to be Angelina Ballerina, holding her sparkle wand, making magic with every step.

On weekends she had her little friends over. With my help they took blankets and made a house within the bunk beds, where they played with My Little Pony or Thumbelina or Rainbow Bright for hours. She was a normal, well-adjusted, beautiful little girl of sugar, spice, and everything nice.

I bought a Sony Betamax shortly after we moved in, and we had movie night as, one by one, the classic children’s movies were released on video. Kim started ballet classes, began to read alone with gusto, and created imaginary friends. As time went on, she learned to eat cereal out of the box and watch Saturday morning television while I caught up on some sleep.

When she was old enough, I finally gave in, and we got a kitten—an adorable little black-and-white one that she carried around constantly, swaddled in dish towels when she wasn’t trying to feed it with a fake doll bottle. One weekend, while I was washing my bedroom windows on the second floor of the townhouse, I could hear Kim and Rhyannon, her friend who lived next door, burst into uproarious laughter, the kind that makes you laugh even though you don’t know what’s funny.

I climbed back in the window and walked toward the girls.

“What’s so funny?”

I saw Kim throwing her new kitten down the flight of stairs where it smacked into the wall on the bottom landing. This was what the two four-year-olds were laughing about. I sent Rhyannon home after picking up the kitten, which miraculously seemed to be uninjured (though it was soon given away).

I scheduled Kim to see a child psychologist, thinking this was not normal. After the second meeting, he came out to the waiting room with Kim and asked her to play while he spoke with Mommy. He thought her acting-out behavior was her testing whether she had any control over death. He went on to explain that she thought if she could make me mad enough, maybe I would die, and then she would know why her daddy died. On some level, he continued, she thought he died because of something she did. She would have really killed the kitten.

Her daddy’s death was still on her mind, but he told me not to make a big deal of it. So I did my best to assure Kim that I wasn’t going anywhere and put some pictures of her dad into frames for her room.

Kim didn’t ask about Dave anymore after that. I was busy with school, busy being a mom. I was lonely and grieving, but now I was more angry than sad. I did my best to channel this into my studies.

I was in Mr. Pettit’s Finance class in January of 1986 when we heard that the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded. Students in the classroom were sobbing, stunned into silence, overcome with the instantaneous horror of loss, whispering how could something like this happen, asking what happens now. I already knew the answer. Fortunately for them, this happened on television, to others. They would grieve until the next headline. Mr. Pettit handed out the next Harvard Business case study for our assignment and started discussing the Pettit Finance Invitational, which would be held at the end of the semester. Then he dismissed the class early.

In a vivid dream one night, Kim and I went back to New Jersey for a visit. My in-laws were living in my old house. I was confused; I thought my sister-in-law was living there. My in-laws were acting very strange, nervous. Their dialogue was a little cryptic, and I sensed something was up. After visiting for a while in the house I told them that I was taking Kim outside to see the horses. My father-in-law became noticeably upset.

My mother-in-law spoke up. “Lin, we didn’t want to tell you this, but now we have no choice,” she trailed off. “Come with me.”

We went outside and around the back of the old horse barn that stood separate from the house at the end of the driveway. She opened up the side door where the horse stalls were. Her demeanor of mystery lent a sense of dread. It was dark inside. There was a door that looked like it led to a small room I had never noticed. She tapped the door with her knuckles. The door opened.

Standing just inside the room was Dave, still alive. I couldn’t understand how this could be. He looked the same but acted as if he didn’t really recognize me. He looked afraid and looked from me to his mother like she was his mommy. My heart stopped beating. My mother-in-law told me that he really hadn’t died, that he was revived but wasn’t the same. She continued, somewhat choked up, saying that he had recovered the ability to move his body and was recovering his memories, but it was hard to tell what he knew and what he didn’t, since he wasn’t able to speak.

I was so confused. I wanted to rush toward him and wrap my arms around him and kiss him all over. I also wanted to smack him, punch him, and beat him to a pulp for all the pain and suffering that I had been through. But I knew doing that would be pointless. How could this be? It didn’t make any sense. It had been two and a half years since his death.

I woke up abruptly, completely rattled.

I loved school. I thought the classes gave me a sense of purpose—and I excelled. In Calculus class I made one really good friend from northern Virginia who had transferred to UVA from George Mason. His name was Robert. He was eight years younger than I but wise beyond his years, easy to be with, and a real gentleman. I loved to tease him about his looks. Though he was Virginia born and bred, with his jet-black hair, dark eyes, and dark, olive skin he looked to be from the Middle East. Besides that, his middle name, Tulloss, was hardly southern. What was up with that?

After I met his parents I teased him about being adopted. His mother looked like Aunt Pittypat from Gone with the Wind and was an active member of the DAR. His father, a collector of Civil War memorabilia among other things, could easily have been a member of the KKK. We hung out together at school, did homework together, laughed, went to the movies, and brought Kim with us everywhere. He came over for dinner and played games with Kim while I did the dishes.

He was like a brother. Together we went to the home football games of the Virginia Cavaliers singing the “Good Ole Song” arm in arm after every touchdown. He didn’t wear the typical Cavalier uniform of khaki pants, an oxford shirt, tie, and blazer. He wore jeans and a T-shirt. His friendship saw me through Kim’s chickenpox outbreak during finals and later the infamous Norwalk winter vomiting virus attack, which occurred during a crushing COBOL programming project. The virus saw each of us at the student health center requiring intravenous fluids for severe dehydration.