There are days I wished I could go back to the beginning, when life was simpler, but then I would never have learned about myself like I did in the past two years. There would have been a trade-off at some point, and I wouldn’t imagine giving those best parts up. I thought about this and other things as I made my way back to New York City. Fresh off a plane, I ran out of the taxicab and scaled up the concrete stairs like my life depended on it. Because it did.
It had been twenty hours since I’d first gotten the call. I knew something was off by the sound of Gloria’s voice. It was uneven, and it cracked when she asked me what I was doing. Somehow it seemed like she didn’t care. Now I knew: she was trying to muster up the courage to tell me. I recognized that tone, the kind when someone was about to deliver the worst blow of your life. And just like it should have, those few words after would finish my already ailing heart.
Come home.
New York hadn’t been my home for the longest time. I had been living in Italy for the past five months.
He had a stroke.
What was he doing in New York?
My phone made a thunk on the neutral Tabriz carpet, never giving Gloria a chance to give me the details. It’s devastating enough to be miles away from the ones you love when something like this happens, and the thought of the possibility of losing him scared me.
I had come to Italy to take refuge from the limelight for a couple of weeks. If only I’d stuck to the plan. I had been living in a beautiful seventeenth-century villa in the Lombardy region, overlooking Lake Como, with a man I thought I was in love with. After spending time at Bruno’s villa, I had fallen madly in love with the countryside, so much so that Julian had purchased a property in the area. It seemed right at the time. I guess loneliness and heartache were the culprits, sweeping me away with the idea that this would fill the void. But no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t ready to move on. Maybe I never will be, not from Simon.
When I became too emotional to function, it was Julian who put me in his luxury car and helped book the first flight out of Milan. He showed me kindness even though I was the one who had dropped the bomb in his lap, days before I had to rush back to New York. Boy—oh boy, I sure know how to make a mess out of things. I only hoped Julian could forgive me someday, but I could never deny myself the truth: there was only one person who could make me happy, and unfortunately, Julian wasn’t him.
I walked through the glass door, rushing towards the first desk I saw. “Hi, I’m looking for my father … Charlie Harper … He was admitted … I don’t know, I think last night.” I forced the words out of my mouth, leaning on the counter for support.
“Third floor.” As the words came out, my feet moved.
“Ma’am?” The voice got smaller.
I pressed the up button, as if the elevator would open immediately. The door to the left was the first to open. When I walked inside, a familiar scent struck me … mint and sweet grapefruit? The smell reminded my heart of something long lost. Just when I think I’m over feeling broken, something reminds me of Simon. I guessed I was fooling myself to think I’m immune to the past. No one is. The only difference was how you dealt with it, and I wasn’t sure if I was coping well or just accepting it. Maybe that was the reason I almost made the biggest mistake of my life. A way to keep my distance from the past—Simon.
I’d been struggling for a while with something, and I’d told no one, not even Gloria. After I broke it off with Simon, I threw myself more into charity work and did fewer modeling jobs. Humanity Matters sent me on a mission to Rwanda. I thought it was a good idea, but the thing was, I didn’t go there alone. There was another humanitarian worker that made the same trip, someone close to my heart. I guessed I wasn’t the only one who needed time away from the light, the kind that brought us together and ripped us apart with the same hand.
The doors opened, and I found Gloria standing at the end of the hallway next to a man with a white coat. They glanced my way when I approached them.
“Mable.” Gloria’s hair was poorly tied, and the dark circles under her eyes made me think she’d been here from the start, standing in my place as I made my way back.
“Dr. Evans, this is my uncle’s daughter, Mable Harper.” Her eyes found me and they displayed the same amount of anxiety. She had every right to be devastated, since my dad was more than an uncle to her.
“How is he doing?” I asked the doctor, well into his fifties, sporting a pair of silver glasses.
“Your father experienced a mild stroke. He’s stable now, and we’re running further tests to determine the cause for it, and once we do, then we can work on preventing it from happening again,” he said.
“Can I see him?”
“You can, once he’s back in his room. As soon as I get any news, I’ll be sure to give you any updates.”
After the doctor left, I turned to Gloria, and she asked, “Did you know he was here?”
“No … I had no idea,” I gazed into her bloodshot eyes. “You mean, he wasn’t here to see you?” I asked, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
“No … I don’t understand … Why would he be in New York and not tell us?” Gloria’s eyebrows crashed together. I was thinking back to the last conversation I had had with my father, which was last Monday. He was at home in Montreal, doing well, considering Lauren had broken things off several months earlier, but he never mentioned that he was planning a trip to New York.
“I can answer that question.”
I took a second to recognize that tonality. I turned, and there she was, the woman with the dark glasses in a bouclé suit.
“Charlie was in town to see me.”
“You?” I wondered why I had never realized it before, but then again, I had had no reason to suspect it until now. What seemed like a ghost from the past was standing before me in the flesh.
“Elaine?—how do you know my uncle?” Gloria asked, but I already knew the answer.
Gloria wouldn’t have recognized her. She was a child herself when she took off for the hills. Elaine had changed her name and gotten enough work done to alter her attributes. No, she looked nothing like the old photographs, or any of my memories of her. She removed her dark sunglasses and adjusted her tailored jacket, then slowly raised her eyes to mine. It was almost like watching a broken glass shatter in reverse, each small piece placed back together. No one could ever forget their mother’s eyes.
“Hello, Mable.” Her voice was soft. “Can we go somewhere to talk?”
Elaine glanced at Gloria before returning her tawny eyes back to mine. I refused to go anywhere, but I needed to know what her part was in this, and where she had been all this time. Elaine, or I should say Joyce, must have been here in New York, building an impressive career while back at home my father and I were picking up the pieces.
“I … I’m going to go find Tracy and Simon.” Gloria touched my arm to get my attention.
I could sense Gloria felt just as awkward about this as I did. Then it hit me—was Simon here? But she walked away before I could even ask. To be honest, I couldn’t deal with Simon right now. I had so much on my plate. Elaine Furstenberg, the editor of the most prominent printed magazine on Earth, also my mother? A hell of a lot to swallow.
We made our way to the cafeteria, but I didn’t acknowledge her existence and kept listening to the sounds of heels clicking on the linoleum floor behind me. I found an empty chair in the corner, and Elaine took her place across from me.
“You had a long flight … you must be tired. Did you want something to eat?” She looked around, then focused back on me. For a woman wearing a ten-thousand-dollar suit, cafeteria food probably didn’t live up to her standards. This is all too strange. What is she even doing here, now, back in my life?
“Ha, don’t bother pulling the motherly act on me.” I glared at her, sliding up my cotton sleeves, revealing a stack of silver bracelets that Simon had gotten me for my birthday when we were together. “You lost that privilege long ago.” There was heartbreak knocking at the door, and my heart wanted to take refuge under the bed.
Her eyes softened. She looked so different from the woman behind the dark lenses, the one I had first seen in Simon’s studio. Something told me she was not as stern and obdurate as she first appeared. Maybe I had her wrong. Had she any regrets? I hoped so, or else I was wasting my time. Then I realized something. Perhaps we had more in common than I hated to admit. She hid in the back of those sunglasses the way I had hid behind Julian Gaspard those past seven months. We were both running from reality. I knew what mine was; what was hers?
“What I want to know is … Why is my father here—why are you?” I said sharply.
Elaine breathed in, holding it for a moment. “It started at your first runway show. I was so sure Charlie wouldn’t have recognized me … so much time has passed, but he did.” She looked down, playing with the tips of her black glasses. I could have asked her what they talked about, but then again, it was none of my business what transpired between them.
“A short time after that, he showed up at my home in Greenwich Village. And we talked and realized that the feelings we thought were gone were in fact still there. So we kept in touch.”
“How adorable.” I laughed sarcastically. “Okay, so?” I wanted her to wrap it up because my stomach was curdling. “How did this all happen? Were you there when he had his stroke?”
“We had gone out for dinner, and your father started not to feel well.”
“You mean you guys were on a date? You’ve got to be kidding me.” I sat far back in my chair. What was my dad thinking?
“I wouldn’t call it a date; I’ve known your father since the age of fourteen. But yes, we were together when it happened,” she said. I guessed that, if he had been alone that night, who knew what the outcome would have been? But it still doesn’t change the fact that I don’t approve of this.
“I can’t believe my father would keep this from me,” I murmured.
“It’s not his fault. I asked him to. We agreed to keep it quiet for a while until we were sure what we were doing,” she said, and I let out a laugh. Kids are supposed to hide things from their parents, not the other way around.
“This is nuts. What do you think will come out of it?”
“I know this is all confusing to you, Mable,” Elaine said.
“To be honest, I don’t know what to feel right now. You disappeared out of my life, and now you’re trying to weasel your way back in? By getting through my dad to get to me? So what … so you can do it to us all over again and leave? You don’t have the privilege to do that—not again.”
“You don’t understand, Mable. It’s so easy to sit there and judge when you don’t know the facts.” She used a calm tonality when she spoke. “Your father and I have a long history,” she said.
I didn’t think I knew anyone who would be bothered by the prospect of their parents getting back together, but my father deserved better. So did I.
“Oh my God, this is unbelievable.” I rubbed my eyes. I tried hard to hate this woman. Whatever biological attachment we had, she was just a stranger. “You’re just going to hurt him again, and honestly I don’t want you around him, or—us.”
Her shoulders dropped, and her eyes saddened. But what else could I say but the truth?
“I can’t blame you … You were too small to understand what actually happened. You think it was easy for me to leave you?”
“The truth? You left because of my disability. You couldn’t deal with the fact I was such a disappointment to you.” I cast a frown in her direction. I knew I was getting ahead of myself, assuming the worst. But it was a long time coming, and the hurt was spilling out of me like Niagara Falls. No walls could hold back these emotions.
She made a noise in the back of her throat. “See how wrong you are. It’s easy to jump to conclusions. I guess you get that from your father,” She squared her shoulders. “I left because of my issues.”
“What?”
She took a deep breath. “Do you remember how it was to be around me? How erratic I was one moment, and lifeless the next?”
“To be honest, I don’t remember much.” I was so young when she left, and the older I got, the more I forgot things about the past. The only fact I recalled was that I wanted my mother.
“After I left, I sought help for my issues. I was just all over the place and couldn’t understand why.”
“I’m not following you.” I slightly shook my head.
“I have Bipolar II disorder,” she said, and I tried to grasp what she was telling me.
“But look at you … You seem fine, and you’ve got this great career,” I said in frustration. How do I know she’s not lying? “You’re Elaine Furstenberg, the editor-in-chief of the biggest magazine in print.”
She gave a vibrant smile and leaned in closer. “Anyone with any kind of physical or mental restrictions are capable of accomplishing so much more. Our setbacks don’t define us unless we allow it.” She brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “I’m on the right medication that works for me. I have my good days and bad days, but I’ve been dealing with it the best I can. What else can I do?”
“But Joyce—Elaine, no matter what issues you have, we would have gotten through it together as a family.”
“Maybe.” Elaine’s lips went thin. “I left because you’re worth more to me than anything else. Things at the time seemed screwed up beyond repair. I thought you and your father would be better off without me. So I came to New York and got a job working at a magazine, writing gossip columns. That’s when I change my name … A way to start with a clean slate,” she said.
“It makes me sad when you say that, because all I ever wanted was my mother … all those milestones … all those times I needed you … you were never there,” I said, and she diverted her eyes down to her hands.
“No amount of sorry will change the fact I wasn’t the mother you deserve. If I could revise the past, believe me, I would. With all that happening, nothing altered that I loved you—but I somehow knew you’d be all right.” She paused. “Now I can only hope to move forward, have you and your father in my next chapters.”
Being left by my mother had been traumatic, but what else could I do? Life would never hand me a Nutella jar with a spoon and say, “Hey, knock yourself out.” Take it or leave it—this was my life. Life is what you get and what you make out of it. If I stayed in a place of resentment, then it meant I wasn’t progressing.
Maybe she was right; it was time to turn a new leaf, but I couldn’t help but wonder what this version of Joyce would have had in common with my father. My dad is beige, and this woman is Chanel. I feared that he would get hurt and I would be forced to hate my mother again. But it was not my choice to make; it was my dad’s, and right now my primary focus was for him to be healthy again.
“Look, I’m not telling you this because I want pity, or to make my illness an excuse to make everything okay—because it’s not. I made a terrible mistake, and I had to live with that. And your father did a fantastic job raising you without me. Maybe I have no right saying this, but I’m proud of what you’ve become. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
As I stared, I felt like I was six again, and my heart wanted to forget everything, but my mind had some doubt. How many chances do we get in life? If I turned her away, she might never come back.
“Give me some time,” I said.
“Whatever it takes, I’m not going anywhere—not this time.”
“Elaine Furstenberg …” I said it like I might wake up from a dream. “Wait a minute.” Then I realize. “Did you know it was me? Your daughter? When you put me on the cover of Elite magazine?”
“I did,” she said, and my heart dropped.
“But now I feel cheated. I believed the editor chose me, but now—knowing it was my mother—” I shook my head. “I didn’t earn it. I’m a complete fraud.”
She sighed. “Understand something, Mable. Simon took amazing pictures of you, and any editor would have been crazy to pass them up.” She paused. “Do you know we sold five hundred thousand copies of that March issue, and the dress you wore on the cover was sold out? No, Mable. I wouldn’t be where I am if I gave people a free pass. I don’t care if you were the Queen of England. If the pictures are shit, you’re not getting on my cover or in my magazine.”
“Okay, but you never thought to reach out to me?” I asked.
“Honestly, I didn’t know how. I thought you hated me.”
“Well, you’re not far off, but maybe with time, I could learn to forgive you,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “Huh, five hundred thousand copies. Wow. And I never got paid for that cover.” I crossed my arms like I was a teenager.
She slid on her dark shades. “Don’t you know you shouldn’t do anything before getting it in writing? Don’t take offense, but business is business, darling. I gave you a better opportunity than a couple thousand dollars would have provided you. I opened the door, and the rest you did yourself, like I knew you would.”