THIRTY-TWO
The years passed like they always do.
My Aunt Peg died in 1969, from emphysema. She smoked cigarettes right up until the end. It was a hard death. Emphysema is a brutal way to die. Nobody can fully remain themselves when they are in such pain and discomfort, but Peg tried her best to stay Peg—optimistic, uncomplaining, enthusiastic. But slowly, she lost the ability to breathe. It’s a horrible thing to watch someone struggling for air. It’s like witnessing a slow drowning. By the end, sorrowful though it was, we were glad that she could go in peace. We couldn’t bear to see her suffer any longer.
There is a limit, I have found, to how much you can mourn as “tragic” the death of an older person who has lived a rich life, and who is privileged enough to die surrounded by loved ones. There are so many worse ways to live, after all, and so many worse ways to die. From birth to death, Peg was one of life’s fortunate ones—and nobody knew it more than her. (“We are the luckies,” she used to say.) But still, Angela, she had been the most important and influential figure in my life, and it hurt to lose her. Even to this day, even all these years later, I still believe that the world is a poorer place without Peg Buell in it.
The only upside of her death was that it got me to finally quit smoking for good—and that’s probably why I’m still alive today.
Yet another generous offering from that good woman to me.
After Peg’s death, I was mostly concerned about what would become of Olive. She had spent so many years tending to my aunt—how would she fill her hours now? But I needn’t have worried. There was a Presbyterian church over near Sutton Place that always needed volunteers, and so Olive found a use for herself running the Sunday school, organizing fund drives, and generally telling people what to do. She was fine.
Nathan got older, but still not much bigger. We kept him in Quaker schools for his whole education. It was the only environment gentle enough for him. Marjorie and I kept trying to find him a passion (music, art, theater, literature), but he was not a person made for passion. What he liked more than anything was to feel safe and cozy. So we kept his world gentle, cocooning him within our peaceful little universe. We never asked much of Nathan. We thought he was good enough, just the way he was. We were proud of him sometimes just for getting through the day.
As Marjorie said, “Not everyone is meant to charge through the world, carrying a spear.”
“That’s right, Marjorie,” I told her. “We shall leave the spear charging to you.”
L’Atelier continued to do steady business even as society changed during the 1960s, and fewer people were getting married. We were fortunate in one regard: we had never been a “traditional” bridal shop, so when tradition went out of style, we remained au courant. We had always sold vintage-inspired gowns—long before the word “vintage” was fashionable. So when the counterculture arrived, and all the hippies were dressing in crazy old clothing, we did not get rejected. In fact, we found a new clientele. I became the seamstress to many a well-heeled flower child. I made gowns for all the affluent bankers’ hippie daughters who wanted wedding dresses that would make them look as though they had sprung fully grown from some rural meadow, rather than having been born on the Upper East Side and educated at the Brearley School.
I loved the 1960s, Angela.
By all rights, I should not have loved that moment in history. At my age, I should have been one of those stodgy old bitches bemoaning the breakdown of society. But I had never been an ardent fan of society, so I didn’t object to seeing it challenged. In fact, I delighted in all the mutiny and rebellion and creative expression. And of course, I loved the clothes. How fabulous, that those hippies turned our city streets into a circus! It was all so freeing and playful.
But the 1960s made me feel proud, too, because there was a level at which my community had already foretold all these transformations and upheavals.
The sexual revolution? I’d been doing that all along.
Homosexual couples, living together as spouses? Peg and Olive had practically invented it.
Feminism and single motherhood? Marjorie had walked that beat for ages.
A hatred of conflict and a passion for non-violence? Well, I’d like to introduce you to a sweet little boy named Nathan Lowtsky.
With the greatest of pride, I was able to look out across all the cultural upheavals and transformations of the 1960s, and know this:
My people got there first.
—
Then, in 1971, Frank asked me for a favor.
He asked me, Angela, if I would make your wedding dress for you.
This startled me on several levels.
For one thing, I was genuinely surprised to hear that you were getting married. It didn’t seem to be in keeping with what your father had always told me about you. He’d been so proud of you as you finished your master’s degree at Brooklyn College, and your doctoral degree at Columbia—and in psychology, of course. (With a family history like ours, he used to say, what else could she study?) Your father was fascinated by your decision not to open a private practice, but instead to work at Bellevue—exposing yourself every day to the most severe and grinding cases of mental illness.
Your work had become your life, he said. He fully approved. He was glad that you hadn’t married young, like him. He knew that you were not a traditional person, and that you were an intellectual. He was so proud of your mind. He was thrilled when you started doing postdoctoral research on the trauma of suppressed memories. He said the two of you had finally found something you could talk about, and that sometimes he would help you to sort data.
He used to say, “Angela is too good and too thoughtful for any man I’ve ever met.”
But then one day he told me you’d acquired a boyfriend.
Frank had not been expecting this. You were twenty-nine years old by then, and perhaps he’d thought you would remain single forever. Don’t laugh, but I think he may have believed you to be a lesbian! But you had met somebody you liked, and you wanted to bring him home for Sunday dinner. Your boyfriend turned out to be the head of security at Bellevue. A recently returned veteran of Vietnam. A native of Brownsville, Brooklyn, who was going back to school at City College to study law. A black man by the name of Winston.
Frank was not upset that you were dating a black man, Angela. Not for a minute. I hope you know that. More than anything, he was awed by your courage and confidence, to bring Winston to South Brooklyn. He saw the looks on the neighbors’ faces. It brought him satisfaction to see how uncomfortable you had made the neighborhood—and to see that other people’s judgments would not stop you. But most of all, he liked and respected Winston.
“Good for her,” he said. “Angela’s always known what she wanted, and she’s never been afraid to take her own path. She’s chosen well.”
From what I understand, your mother was less happy about you and Winston.
According to your father, Winston was the only subject upon which he and Rosella ever argued. Frank had always deferred to your mother’s opinion about what was best for you. Here, though, they parted ways. I don’t know the details of their argument. It’s not important. In the end, though, your mother came around. Or at least that’s what I was told.
(Again, Angela—I apologize if anything I’m telling you here is incorrect. I’m aware that I’m relaying your own history to you at this point, and it makes me self-conscious. You surely know what happened better than anyone—or maybe you don’t. Again, I don’t know how much you were shown of your parents’ dispute. I just don’t want to leave out anything that you might not be aware of.)