Prologue
I didn't like my mother, and I certainly didn't love her.
The only time we actually had anything in common was when I
had my own daughter — but by then it was too late, since my
mother was to die before we really could compare notes.
I know she didn't like me either. I can't say whether she
loved me, as I don't remember her ever telling me so. But
her dislike was more about not understanding the monster
she created, as she would say, the person who wanted so
much more than she expected — or was able — to give. Or
wanted to give. To me. To my sisters. And to herself.
My mother married my father when she was nineteen and was a
widow at thirty-three. She told me that he was the only man
she had ever been with, both before they married and after
he died. Even when I was a child, I knew that theirs was a
complicated marriage. I wanted to believe they were
destined to be together, that their bitter fights had to do
with his illness and her inability to cope with it. I
didn't want to believe that my parents — childhood
sweethearts — could end up hating each other with a passion
that still frightens and saddens me to this day.
A week after her funeral in 1993, my two sisters and I were
in her apartment in Queens, New York, arguing over who
would get her things. I was thirty-seven and my sisters
would soon be thirty-five and thirty-four. She didn't have
much, and I knew we were fighting over who would get more
for herself and not for who would have more of her. Who
would get the ugly blue and white crystal bowl that a
neighbor's daughter had given my mother after a trip to
Germany as thanks for looking in on her elderly mother? Or
the Lladró porcelain statue of a milkmaid that came from
Spain, a gift from that same neighbor's daughter? Or the
framed painting of a Moorish castle that she bought at a
Greenwich Village art show and was so proud that it
perfectly matched the green and gold motif of her living
room?
My sisters and I took turns picking things we wanted. I
forget who went first. I put my choices in one corner of
the room, and I soon realized the things I chose weren't
really important to me, but I wasn't willing to say so. I
wasn't going to let my sisters have all of her things.
And then I remembered the box. It was the size of a shoe
box, hand-carved brown wood, with a green and red skull and
crossbones painted on top. It looked like a pirate's
treasure chest. I don't know if my father did the painting,
but I wouldn't be surprised if it had been something he
made in a grade school shop class. My mother was an A
student and my father barely made it through the ninth
grade. I could see him doing well in shop class, though.
When he showed up, that is.
I knew my father had given the box to my mother before they
got married. She told me so many years earlier, when I sat
on the floor watching her cleaning out her bedroom closet.
Or trying to. The box sat in the middle of a pile of shoes —
all colors and many missing a mate — scuffed pumps and
loafers, slippers and handbags. I asked her if I could open
the box, and she told me no, it was only for her. That
there was nothing interesting in it and I should go back to
my room.
I tried again. "When can I open it?"
"When you're older," she told me. "You're not old enough
now."
I had turned thirteen the week before. That day she told me
I was now officially a grown-up.
"But I'm a grown-up," I reminded her. "You told me so
yourself last week."
Silence.
"When can I open it?" I repeated.
She paused. "When I'm dead," she responded. "You can have
it when I'm dead. In fact, it will be my present to you."
* * *
Over the years, whenever my mother wasn't home, I would
take the box out of her closet and turn it around and
around, shaking it and wondering what treasures hid inside.
I wanted so much to open it, but the box was locked tight,
and I couldn't figure out how to open it without breaking
the lock. I once dropped it on the floor — partly by
accident but partly hoping the little gold padlock would
somehow spring open and whatever was inside would fall out.
But the box remained shut and the top corner chipped where
it hit the floor. I looked around, afraid she would catch
me, even though I knew no one was there. I knew she would
kill me if she found me playing with it. So I put it back
where I found it and left her room.
From that point on, I wanted to know what was inside. I
knew the box was important to her. And at her apartment a
few days after her death, I knew that if there was one
thing I had to have of hers, it was that. That box would
give me the answers to my questions: Who were my parents
really? And why did my mother end up with so very little in
her life?
As my sisters fought over her fifteen-year-old television
set, I walked into her bedroom and over to her closet. The
sliding door was off its track, as it always was when she
was alive. Never a good housekeeper when my sisters and I
were living with her, my mother's apartment was even more
cluttered and messy after we had all moved out. Her clothes
were so tightly packed in the closet that it was hard to
see what was there. She never threw anything out. I could
see the blue dress with the white stitching that she wore
to my father's funeral twenty-six years earlier crammed
next to the brown polyester slacks and the brown and white
polyester blouse she wore to her chemo treatments. Her
shoes were thrown in a pile on the bottom of the floor,
size 7 ½ AAA that she always had such a hard time finding
in stores. The home nurse who had taken care of her while
she was dying clearly had no interest in keeping the house
clean, either. What is the point? she probably had asked
herself. She's going to die, anyway, so why should it
matter?
I was glad I brought my largest canvas tote bag that day. I
carried it with me from room to room, knowing my sisters
would think I was trying to take something they might want.
I didn't care what they thought. Carrying the bag reminded
me of when my mother first came to visit me and my husband
in our apartment soon after we were married. She kept her
handbag with her the entire time she was visiting, tightly
over her shoulder, hugging it to her chest. "Ma," I said
when I saw she had her bag with her in the kitchen, the
dining area, the bathroom, and then back in the living
room, "I promise I won't steal your money." She looked at
me like I was crazy, and then I touched her bag and told
her it was safe for her to leave it in one place. We both
laughed, and she told me she didn't realize that she was
carrying it around. I'm not sure I believed her.
Now, facing her closet, I bent over and looked on the floor
and pushed aside some of her things, but I didn't see the
box. I stood up, stepped back as far as I could go, jumped
up a few times to see if the box was on the top shelf. I
started to get nervous. I didn't want my sisters to know
what I was doing. They were still looking through her
things, her LP records now. I left my bag on the floor by
the closet and tiptoed down the short hallway to the
kitchen and to the table covered with the orange and yellow
checked vinyl tablecloth with old cigarette burns at the
place where she used to sit. Feeling like a criminal, I
glanced over my shoulder a few times, hoping my sisters
wouldn't notice me. I picked up one of the metal folding
chairs and tiptoed back to her bedroom.
I placed the chair in front of the closet, kicked off my
shoes, and climbed on top. I saw the box on the shelf,
hiding behind the simple blue leather pocketbook I gave her
for her fiftieth birthday. I knew she would never use that
bag, but I wanted her to have something that wasn't plastic
and didn't have hundreds of pockets and zippers. I wasn't
surprised when I saw the tag still on it. I pulled it out
and shoved it into my tote bag.
Then I reached for the box, pulled it out, put it under my
left arm, and climbed down from the chair, keeping my
balance by grabbing onto the blue and green and white
housedress she wore when playing poker with my grandparents
and their friends on Saturday nights. I slipped my shoes
back on and put the chair in the corner, next to her bed.
There was no one now who would notice it missing from the
kitchen. I slipped the box inside my bag and used my
sweater to cover it. I walked out of the bedroom and saw my
sisters still going through her LPs, arguing over who was
going to get Barbra and who was going to get Frank.
"I'm going now," I said. "I have to get home for dinner."
"Did you take anything else?" my youngest sister
barked. "You didn't take anything, did you?" I knew she
would worry that I had more than she did.
"What would I take?" I asked. "There's nothing here I
want."
Out in the street, I looked for a taxi to take me home to
my apartment in Manhattan. After twenty minutes, I found a
driver who was thrilled to go back over the Fifty-ninth
Street Bridge. I leaned into the seat, lifted the sweater
in the bag, and looked at the box. I thought about when I
would open it. And then I thought about my mother and why
our relationship was so complicated.
"Why do you want more?" she always asked me and not
pleasantly. "Why is my life not good enough for you?"
I closed my eyes as the taxi went over the bridge and
didn't open them until it turned the corner to my building.
When I got back to my apartment, my husband and daughter
were sitting in the kitchen, laughing together and eating
dinner. I was reminded how lucky I was to have my own
family that was so uncomplicated. I gave my husband and
daughter a kiss and then walked straight into the bedroom.
"What did you do at your mom's house?" my husband called
after me. "Did you find anything special?"
"Nope," I said. "Not a thing. She didn't have a thing I
wanted."
I don't know why I lied to him. I sat on the bed holding
the box, tracing the outline of the skull and crossbones
with my fingertip. I toyed with the lock and noticed that
it would be easy to pry open. Finally, I would be able to
find out what it had been hiding all of these years. All I
had to do was get a screwdriver, wedge it under the metal
plate, flip open the top, and all of my questions would be
answered.
Instead, I walked over to my linen closet, took out a white
towel, and wrapped it around the box. I opened my closet
door and moved aside my shoes that were neatly stacked in
white boxes. I pushed the wooden box far back into my
closet, behind my shoes, and closed the door.
I can't explain why I didn't open the box that day. And I
can't explain why I didn't open it until twelve years
later. I don't know what I was afraid of, but all during
those twelve years, I would conveniently forget it was in
my closet, or when I did notice it was there, would decide
I just didn't have the time to look inside.