If You Could See What I See (44 page)

“My name is Regan O’Rourke. I was a desperately poor, hungry girl in Ireland. My family burned to death in a fire. I was whipped and raped by an evil and violent man. I became a prostitute. And then I came here, to America, and I overcame my past.” She lifted her chin. “I became the owner of Lace, Satin, and Baubles. I am grateful. And, by damn, I’m proud of myself.”

The video went off. The room was completely black, utterly silent, except for the flickering of candlelight.

The sound of Grandma’s heels tapping on the runway—
from the other end
—echoed through the factory. Everyone’s heads spun around, the standing ovation thunderous as Grandma proudly walked the entire runway in her full-length, blue velvet dress with a flowing train. When she arrived at the front of the stage, one lone spotlight on her, she stood, regal, proud, chin tilted up, a slight smile on her face. She was magnificent.

Lacey, Tory, my mother, and I stood behind her, trying hard not to bust out in tears.

Grandma indicated that people were to sit down. When it was quiet again, she took off her pearl earrings and handed them to Lacey. Tory received her pearl bracelets. My mother received two strands of her pearl necklaces, and I received the other two. Eric stood to the side with a video camera, so Grandma was also on the huge screen above the audience.

I unzipped the back of her blue velvet dress while Grandma faced the audience. I unhooked her black bra, then turned her toward us, her back to the audience. She held my gaze. I waited. She closed her green eyes for one second, then nodded. Gently, my mother and I pulled her blue velvet dress to her waist.

She stood half-naked onstage, the video camera projecting her head and back onto the screen.

I heard the gasps. I heard the horrified exclamations, the choked, “Oh, my God!”

The whip marks were still visible, still raised, crisscrossing her spine, her shoulder blades, and her slim waist, decades later, from Ireland to America, down the curve of a rainbow, on the back of an owl.

I looked at my mother, who had given up all pretenses of keeping it together, her tears a river of pain. Tory and Lacey clutched each other, Grandma’s scars a scar for all of us.

After a minute, I refastened her bra and zipped her up. Lacey handed her her earrings, which she reattached. Tory fastened her bracelets around her wrist, and my mother and I put her pearl necklaces back on.

I handed Grandma a microphone, then we all stood back, out of the spotlight.

“Lace, Satin, and Baubles is not only about lingerie and negligees,” Grandma said. “It’s about women. It’s about how we want to live our lives. It’s about what we think about ourselves and
how
we think. It’s about valuing ourselves enough to wear something stunning, something lacy, not to show it to someone else but because we know that we deserve it. We know that we can get out into a world that is sometimes cold, and sometimes dangerous, and be someone in it. We can become who we dreamed of becoming, we can leave a bad past behind, and we can look beautiful doing it.”

She stopped when the clapping became too loud, and waited for silence again.

“I am not defined by my body or what has happened to it. I am not defined by beatings or an arching whip or a dangerous man, or by the wreckage of prostitution. I am not defined by my age. I am not defined by what others think of me. I am defined by myself. I will define myself to me. I will live, I will laugh, I will love. I will not be silenced. I will not be invisible. I will be me until the very end. And I will look beautiful.”

The clapping and cheering started again, people on their feet, arms in the air.

“I dared,” she said, those green eyes glittering. “I dared to found a company that would leave a legacy. I dared to live the way I damn well wanted to live.”

The clapping almost overrode my grandma’s message, so she raised her voice, her words echoing across that factory, over the satin, over the lace, over the baubles, and back to Ireland.

“I dare you to live the life you want to live and to leave your nightmares behind you. I dare you to dance, I dare you to sparkle, I dare you to wear gold tassels.
I dare you,
” she shouted above the cacophony.
“I dare you”
—she pointed at the audience
—“to be you.”

The lights snapped off, the factory in total darkness, the cheering absolutely deafening.

When the lights came back on, all of us, including Lacey’s whole family, Blake, Scotty, my mother, and all of the employees in their lingerie, were on that runway, Grandma in the center of it.

As it should be.

 

The next morning, newspapers from all over the nation were talking about our Fashion Story. They talked about our life stories. They ran photos of the embellished lingerie that our employees had designed. They could not get enough of Grandma’s life story. The whole Fashion Story was on YouTube, this time uploaded by Eric.

Our website crashed twice. We hauled it back up.

We were inundated with orders.

Lace, Satin, and Baubles had made it.

 

Lacey and Tory have many talents.

One of them is shopping. They came by my tree house to get me three days after The Fashion Story.

Lacey said to Tory, “Get a trash bag.”

Tory grabbed a bag.

“Hey!” I protested.

They ignored me. Everything in my closet was thrown out. The only things I managed to snag back were two green and yellow college sweatshirts and an orange and black high school sweatshirt. All my clothes fit into one large, black trash bag.

Tory and Lacey stood and studied me, their eyes sad, that one saggy bag between them.

“What?” I asked, defensive.

“A closet is a reflection of how a woman feels about herself,” Lacey said.

“Your closet says that you feel nothing about yourself. You feel that you are dog poop. You want to be invisible. That’s what your closet shows,” Tory said. “And it makes me mad!”

“Why on earth would my closet make you mad, Tory? It’s not like you have to dress from it.”

She shuddered. “Don’t even say that. The thought makes me feel like Humpty Dumpty. I’m mad because you should not feel like this about yourself, Meggie. Like an empty closet.”

“No.” Lacey shook her head. “You’re better than this, Meggie. You need to sparkle again. Shine. Give yourself some lovin’. Like Grandma said at The Fashion Story.”

“Ya ain’t no trash lady, but this—” Tory waved her hand. “It’s inexcusable. I’m taking this to Goodwill. I don’t want the ex–Frumpster Dumpster Queen to have any chance to put these rags back on. No, bag lady”—she put up a hand to ward me off—“stay away or you’ll find out how much of a weapon my cast is.”

 

My grandma said she was tired and didn’t want to shop no matter how much we pleaded, and she made me promise I would start wearing the clothes she bought me so I wouldn’t look like a lost, possum-hunting hillbilly. We met my mother at the mall. I thought my debit card was going to burst into flames.

Afterward we went to a late lunch of sushi, then headed to a spa. My hair was highlighted and trimmed to the middle of my back. My eyebrows were waxed. My facial smoothed things out. My massage took out the kinks. My fingernails and toenails were pampered with pink flowers.

Lacey clapped, then raised both hands in the air, and yelled, “Meggie’s back!”

Tory said, “You are more delicious than a martini, and that’s saying a lot.” She kissed my cheek.

My mother, dressed in her beige slacks and comfortable shoes, wagged a finger at me and said, “You and the chief could so easily play ‘Chief Captures the Thief.’ It’s a titillating bedroom game . . .”

 

It was vain.

It was silly.

It was like being in high school and getting all dressed up, hoping that the boy you like sees you. You deliberately go to wherever he is and prance around.

I wanted to prance.

I crossed the street and knocked on Blake’s door. It was late, but he’d told me to come by any time for dinner after the shopping spree.

I smiled. I almost
giggled.

I was wearing tight jeans, four-inch cheetah print heels, a purple, low-cut shirt with a cross-bodice, our best purple push-up bra, a turquoise-silver necklace and matching earrings, and beaded bracelets.

My curls were soft and tight, sort of that uncontrolled look that I’d had before, that I still felt belonged to me. I had on lipstick, liner, and mascara, so I didn’t look pale sick, like I had hepatitis or the plague. My dark brown, coffee-colored eyes looked happy.

Blake was speechless.

I smiled into those gray-blues, shut the door, walked into his arms, and pulled his head down to mine. He responded with fire and passion. How I love that man’s fire and passion.

“How hungry are you, Meggie?”

“Not hungry at all.”

“Good.”

He carried me to his bedroom in his arms, and it was two hours before we ate. He was absolutely stellar in bed. This did not surprise me. He also liked my push-up bra. I liked him liking my push-up bra. It had been designed by Tory. She privately called it her “Slut Line.” It’s actually called Satiny Seductions.

He liked my lacy purple panties, too. Those were also part of the “Slut Line.”

They came off quickly.

And later, “Meggie, I love you no matter how you look.”

“I love you, too, Blake. Kiss me again, would you?”

He would.

31

I
reland is a country that sings to your heart. County Cork, where Grandma, my mother, Tory, Lacey, the baby Victoria, and I were staying, is Irish magic. The beauty wraps itself around you like a hug. My mother kept telling me to look for leprechauns.

It’s a country of different shades of emerald green stretching to the ocean. It’s a country of Blarney Castle, glowing rainbows, soaring cliffs, craggy beaches, fog-touched mountains, and rivers that wander. It’s a country of colorful homes filled with the memories of generations of people long gone lining up on the water, church steeples that touch the sky, and villages that look like they were drawn from a picture book.

And, as Tory would say, the pubs aren’t bad at all. Grandma liked the cigars, loved the whiskey. She took a lot of naps after the whiskey.

On Friday, we set out for our destination. After getting directions, we drove down a long road that seemed to meander here and there, sheep on one side, then a meadow, then a white stone house, next a bay with sailboats, followed by stones in a circle.

We finally arrived at a small, well-tended cemetery.

For the first time in her life, Grandma put her hands out to my mother and me, and we helped her, her gait unsteady, tears streaming, as we headed to a corner of the graveyard. At one point she stopped and “patted the fairies” on her back, her face pale.

Her composure deserted her as she stood over the graves of her mother, her father, and her sister: Teagan, Lochlan, and Keela MacNamara. She dropped to her knees and touched the gravestones, her tears watering each gray slab, her body seeming to crumble before my eyes as she leaned over to kiss each one, her fingers caressing the names that had weathered with time.

“I’m coming home soon,” she whispered hoarsely to them, her Irish brogue thicker than I’d ever heard it. “I’m coming home.”

 

The evening we returned home from Ireland, we dropped Grandma off at her house. We walked in with her, unpacked her suitcases. My mother insisted on staying, but Grandma refused her company. “I saw the rainbow, the leprechaun, and the owl. Now I need to be alone, Brianna.”

Tory argued and said she would stay, but Grandma said, “I’ve had enough of our family’s company. Go get a martini.”

Lacey said she would stay but wouldn’t bother her at all. Grandma said, “With Victoria screaming, no, thank you.”

I said I wanted to stay. “I’ll be quiet, Grandma. No talking.”

“No, you won’t, you chatterbox. My ears need a rest.”

She reached out her arms and hugged each one of us, then opened up the traveling jewelry box she’d brought with her.

The longest strand of pearls she gave to my mother, who held her mother close, their cheeks together.

She gave Lacey, Tory, and me the other strands, all equal in length, placing them gently over our heads.

“I love you,” she told us. “Thank you for being a part of the Bust Out and Shake It Adventure Club, and thank you for going to Ireland with me.”

We hugged her, told her we loved her.

Grandma died that night.

She was with Teagan, Lochlan, and Keela MacNamara and Cecil O’Rourke, The Irishman, once again.

Regan O’Rourke was home.

My grief for my grandma swept me off my feet, held me aloft in shock, then dropped me down to earth where the pain spread like I’d been hit by lightning.

She had had a heart attack. She had been diagnosed with lung cancer.

“You knew that Grandma was sick?” I asked my mother in disbelief at my grandma’s kitchen table the next afternoon, after the mortuary had taken her away. Lacey and Tory were there, too, also looking as if they’d been hit by lightning.

She nodded, lifting her glasses up and wiping her face with a white lace handkerchief she’d sewn herself. She had gone by Grandma’s to check on her and found her in her chair, a glass of whiskey spilled on the floor, her cigar in the ashtray.

“She told me about a month before the Ireland trip. She asked me not to tell anyone. She’s known for about a year.”

Known for about a year.
That’s why she was so insistent that I come home....

“But”—Lacey shifted baby Victoria to her other shoulder, then borrowed my mother’s hankie to wipe her own tears—“why didn’t she want us to know?”

“Because she didn’t want the fuss, honey. She didn’t want the panic and stress. She didn’t want people to treat her any differently than they were.”

“But why didn’t she agree to treatment?” I asked. I could not stop my tears. I took the hankie from Lacey.

“It was hopeless. When they found it, it was too far along. She didn’t want to go through chemo and radiation. Besides, even the doctors said it would extend her life for weeks only, if at all.”

“So she said to hell with that,” Tory said. She was pale and leaning heavily on the table.

“It wasn’t going to cure her, so, as she said, ‘Why inflict torture on myself?’ She chose to live the end of her life the way she chose to live her whole life. On her own terms,” my mother said. “She accepted medication from the doctors that made her life easier, took away some of the pain, but she didn’t try to cure herself. She didn’t want to spend the last months in the hospital. She hated hospitals, she hated going to the doctors, she hated needles. She was adamant.”

I sat back in my chair, stunned, sunlight glittering off the chandelier. Lacey lifted up her shirt and nursed Victoria, wiping her tears off Victoria’s face as they fell.

“Your grandma did what she wanted to do, girls. She spent time with you all finishing up her Bust Out and Shake It Adventure Club list and making memories she knew you wouldn’t forget. She wanted you all to laugh and have adventures together, to heal the rifts. She wanted you, Meggie, to be happy again, to live again. She spent time at the business, her legacy. She took mornings off so she could rest and read and, as she said, ‘Be quiet and shut my mouth for once in my life.’”

“Mom, you should have told us,” Lacey said.

My mother shook her head. “I couldn’t. I swore I wouldn’t. She deserved her privacy. She deserved to die the way she wanted to die. It was not for me to override my own mother. She was not senile. She had no signs of dementia. She made a rational and reasonable choice. Who was I to force her to undergo treatment? Who was I to tell you all about her health? This wasn’t about us, it was about her and her having control and enjoying every minute that she had left. How she handled her death and illness was not my decision.”

I would miss my grandma forever, I knew I would. Her illness explained why she only worked part time for the first time in her life. It explained why the doctors at the hospital knew her name when we were there after the accident. Most of all, it explained her eagerness to restore my relationship, and Lacey’s relationship, with Tory. She believed in family and love above all else.

“She wrote two letters. This first one is for us,” my mother said, taking the hankie back from Tory as she pulled the letter from the envelope. Although my sisters and my mother and I inherited the bulk of her estate, the letter gave us specific directions on how much money to give to a list of people, including funds to pay off Lance Turner’s home, continued support for Mrs. Wolff who had Alzheimer’s, and to the local community college for scholarships. It also told us how she was to be buried and what her memorial service should entail.

“She has got to be kidding,” Lacey said, about the memorial service.

“Rockin’ it till the end,” Tory said.

“She rocked,” I said.

 

At her request, we had Grandma’s memorial service at Leonard Tallchief’s restaurant, which was shut down for us. Family, friends, neighbors, and employees were invited.

I read Grandma’s second letter out loud to the entire group after hors d’oeuvres were served.

“I wanted to invite you to one last formal dinner with me.” I choked up. “Everyone here was invited because I love and care about you. I want you to remember, as you go through the rest of your life, that I thought you were damn special. Damn special.” I laughed, couldn’t help it. “This will be a seven-course dinner that Leonard and I planned down to the finest detail.”

I looked up at poor Leonard. He was a wreck and wiping his eyes with his white apron.

“You will enjoy the meal,” I read. “If you must stand up and talk about me, you can only say something funny. That’s it. Only laughing at my service, no tears. I’ll miss you, you’ll miss me, blah blah blah. Buck up. No whining. My death is a part of my life. Don’t ruin this last day for me by getting all gushy. It’s embarrassing. You especially, Brianna. I love you, daughter, but you are overly sensitive and prone to uncontrolled emotions.”

We all laughed.

“I have a special treat for you,” I continued, hearing my grandma’s voice in my head. “I’ve hired a band, and I want you to dance. Dance for yourselves, for me, for us. Dance because life is a precious gift and you have to accept the good with the bad. My death might be considered bad, but what’s good about my life is that I was privileged to have you in it with me. Now, don’t be all reserved, boring, and stick-in-the-mud-ish. Have fun tonight. For me, make a promise that you’ll have fun. This is my last gift to you. I love you.”

When I was done, people were not obeying Grandma. They cried, some louder than others. I heard muffled sobs, hand over mouth. I saw shaking shoulders. Even the men were blowing their noses, wiping tears away. I hugged Hayden, Lacey hugged Regan, my mother hugged Cassidy.

Then Tory stomped up to the front of the room in her stilettos and purple dress. “What is wrong with you people? Look at you! Crying like babies! Blubbering about. Blah, blah, blah. Do what Grandma told you to do, buck up!” She waved at someone at the back of the room.

A band entered—long hair, bass guitars, a drum set already up. “Everyone,” Tory said, her voice snappish but insistent, “we’re gonna do what Grandma told us to do. We’re gonna party. Now get off your butts and dance.”

The band strummed the guitars. The drums rolled. They jammed.

Dancing. Now?

Why not?

I grabbed the police chief, Lacey grabbed Matt, Tory grabbed Farmer Scotty, the kids grabbed my mother, and we headed to the center of the dance floor. Soon we were joined by the rest of the gang.

We danced. For Grandma. For her and her legacy to us. Because life, as she said, is a precious gift.

 

“I’ll miss hearing her heels tapping down the hallways at work,” Tory said to Lacey and me at three in the morning, after the party. “It was like listening to a human battle-ax coming your way, but I’d do anything to hear it again.”

The three of us had gone back to Lace, Satin, and Baubles. We sat in Grandma’s office, at her long antique table, under the chandelier she bought for sparkling light to get rid of the darkness of poverty, and pink, because her poor, exhausted mother loved that color.

“I’ll miss the way she ran the company,” Lacey said. “Part military commander, part fashion maven.”

“I’ll miss her cozy warmth and affection,” I said, and we laughed.

“The only thing on her Bust Out and Shake It Adventure Club list she didn’t get was Tony Robbins,” Lacey said.

“That’s a shame,” I said. “She was so close.”

“Tony missed out,” Tory drawled. “He, Grandma, and I could have had a threesome.”

“I can’t believe she’s gone,” Lacey said. “I can’t believe it.” No, it is hard to believe in death.

But it forces you to believe in it eventually.

And yet. My grandma had lived. She had truly lived. Hers was a life of poverty and brutality, loss and grief, hard work and determination, character and courage. She had hit the absolute bottom of despair and degradation, yet she had lived with love and hope and compassion for others. She had built something. She had triumphed.

Yes, she had lived.

I put my hand out. Tory put her hand on mine, Lacey’s on top of Tory’s.

We cried
together.

As Grandma had always wished it to be.

 

Part of me thought I was aching for more punishment by flying down to Aaron’s grave a week after the private burial for my grandma, but the other part of me knew I had to do it, and the time was right.

I would be gone for one night only. I left on Saturday morning. I told Blake where I was going. He wanted to go with me. I declined. He was hurt that I was excluding him and hurt that I didn’t want him there for moral support.

“Blake, I have to go alone. I have to.”

I had shown him the DVD, although I didn’t watch it with him. I thought he needed to know what I had dealt with in my marriage. Maybe it would help him understand my garbled-up mind.

He walked over to my tree house after he watched it. I sat in a yellow Adirondack chair, and he sat in a green one. Pop Pop jumped up on his lap, Breadsticks curled up on mine.