LETTERS TO CLAIRE

Manuscript wc 50,000

Excerpt wc 2,994

LETTERS TO CLAIRE

Once upon a time I was on the cusp of sleep, in that liminal state, where one is not quite here, yet not there, wherever there may be. I was in the bedroom your father and I share. It was the hour of dusk. I must have been weary or in pain from the endometriosis. I had lain down alone in the old mahogany sleigh bed we had at the time. It was summer and I had lightly drawn the bedding up. The evening air was mostly still, the softest breeze barely moving the panels of lace at the windows. A vintage armoire was against the wall beyond the foot of the bed, a mirror in its center. I became aware of a presence. Then saw her. A tiny girl, around the age you would have been at the time, had you lived. Dancing in her nightgown in front of the mirror. I watched, transfixed. She walked along the lower edge of the bed, tracing her fingertips as she went, then came along the side of the bed towards me. When she reached me, she lifted the covers and began to climb in with me. I heard a cry come from my throat, and she vanished into the evening air.

Prologue

“Do you have any children?” The question hangs innocently in the air each time I am

asked, often by a woman who has just mentioned her own. And in that space of

ensuing stillness, as I consider once more how best to reply, I remember.

“No,” I often say. But this is not quite the truth. I once was a mother. And though my

daughter is no longer on the earth, she was my child for those brief months she resided

within me. Upon her release from my watery womb, I held her against my proud and

breaking heart.

It was long ago, and sometimes even now it feels as though something imagined, an enchantment of dark and light, whose forces grabbed me by the mane and dragged me through a crack in the earth into a land without cover or safety, without map or compass.

I think of those irretrievable seasons of her existence. The possibility of what might have been still visits on the edges of sleep, or in those spaces when one is unguarded and penetrable by that which is not reasonable.

At thirty-six I had, at first, been jealous of the tiny girl in my womb, though it was not an admissible thought at the time. Rather a current of deeply held fear, cold and secretive, bound by shame, which caused a deceptive ripple on the surface of the lake of everyday thought, making me uneasy, confused. When I had first been told I was having a girl, I had feared Paul might love her more than me. A thought which now seems unbelievable, that I had, even briefly, considered her a being with whom I might have to compete for love.

The fear that I would be old, she would be young, echoes of my grandmother’s voice

imprinted within me, the dark cloud of insecurity that enveloped my adolescence and early adulthood, the feeling of not being perfect or beautiful enough to be loved.

The thought of having to deliver a baby frightened me. It seemed an impossible task rather than a natural one, a gift I might embrace. I was not at ease in my body, not able to trust its innate wisdom.

PART 1

The Long Road to Claire

1

Children

Claire, I wasn’t sure I wanted children. I wasn’t sure I liked children. I didn’t know if I could conceive a child. My abdomen was full of scar tissue. Each month, the white-hot coals of endometriosis did their simmering, robbing my affected tissues of an adequate blood supply. I gutted through the days, rocked on hands and knees through bed drenching nights, making animal cries, your father’s cool palm resting on my tailbone. One day my doctor said, “If you think you might want a child, you should try now.”

Was it the glimmer of possibility, or sex without a diaphragm, or wonderment at maybe being able to carry a child that made me want to try? I let myself dream it might happen.

I bought a pregnancy test if my period was a day late. My efforts were for naught. I watched friends become pregnant. They were pleased and smug with their flawless pregnancies, and healthy, fat babies. I tried to celebrate them, gifting them with hand-yoked baby dresses, or a Waterford baby bottle. All sent off beautifully packaged, seeking to conceal my pain with a gesture of extravagance.

A sense of inadequacy enveloped me, along with frustration and dismay towards my body, and anger for allowing myself hope. My thoughts turned to adoption, perhaps a child from India. Your father, Paul, had traveled for work, had become enchanted with the East Indian people. Yet he was not enthusiastic. He’d become accustomed to the life we had. He was an avid surfer, who took off when the waves were good, without the responsibilities or tethers of children. One morning, while he was preparing our small inflatable ranch boat for a trip up the coast to Hollister Ranch, legendary for its surf spots, I brought up adoption. He was impatient with me, and I was disheartened and angry. It seemed there was never a good time to talk about what was happening with my body and my hope for a child. I went into the house, slamming the back door behind me. I heard his friends arrive. I heard his truck and the boat go down the driveway. Alone, sitting on the sofa, I considered his disinterest. I became less sure of our marriage, of our future together, of what our mutual dreams might be, or if we had any.

The crevice between us deepened.

I turned my attention back to a dream of acting. Maybe I could still make it work. I stopped trying to conceive, stopped taking pregnancy tests, stopped bringing up adoption.

2

Actress

With your father and I at odds regarding adoption, and with my complicated hopes for a child in limbo, I needed something of my own, something that was both challenging and fulfilling. I wondered again if the acting was the answer.

The endometriosis had interfered, undermined the confidence I had in my body. I could no longer count on it, could not trust it to sustain me, let alone, make the trip back and forth to Los Angeles for class and auditions. And then there was the matter of my mother, your grandmother, whose heart attack had left her weak and in need of my care.

Claire, though I had studied with some marvelous teachers - Jeff Corey, Mitch Nestor, my stop-and-start career had the makings of a fatal flaw. I had been close enough on the fringes to feel the warmth of the spotlight. I’d been called to audition at Paramount Studios for the girlfriend of Michael J. Fox’s character, Alex, on the television series, Family Ties, the role that eventually went to Courtney Cox and that sent her star rising.

I held on to the slender thread connected to the star upon which I had made my wish.

An excellent on-camera class at the American Film Institute presented a new possibility. Hoping to take my mind off the thought of never having a child and seeking the pleasure I found when dissolving into a character, I registered. Adam Roark and Lou Diamond Phillips were the instructors. Lou was fresh off the film, La Bamba. Adam, lean and handsome, was a gifted director and actor, who had played so many tough guys in so many biker movies in the 60’s, when Peter Fonda offered him a role in another one, Adam turned it down. It was Easy Rider.

***

During introductions at our first meeting, one young woman named Terry, revealed that her father was Steve McQueen. Despite her pedigree, she was modest and unassuming, a good actor. She would be dead at thirty-eight a decade later from complications following a liver transplant. But in those days, we were oblivious to what lay around the corner for any of us.

I photographed well. Though shy off camera, I felt a rush, alive upon hearing the words, “Quiet on set” “Camera rolling” “Sound rolling” “Action.”

The scenes were all improvised. We had to think on our feet. Be in the moment. In one Saturday class, the improvisation placed me at a restaurant table. when my ex-boyfriend walked in with another woman. They were to sit at a table not far from mine. They were not to have not seen me. My role was to do something, but it was up to me to decide what. I had a brown paper lunch bag I had brought from home that day. In it was a peanut butter and banana sandwich I had planned to eat when the class broke for lunch. It was wrapped in waxed paper. I took the bag on set with me. I was wearing 501’s, a soft, drapey, white blouse, unbuttoned just enough, heeled boots, and a rugged, brown leather jacket, with a soft patina that matched my chestnut hair with its warm blonde highlights. I felt cool, womanly, sexy in an unstudied way. I was in my element.

I slipped off my jacket. My rolled sleeves exposed my forearms, and the delicate gold bangle on my left wrist. The waitress arrived to take my order. I asked only for a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Placing my bag on the table, I took my sandwich out and unwrapped it. Between bites of my sandwich, I tore and rolled a tiny ball between my thumb and index finger, tossing them inconspicuously towards the backs of my ex and his date, and ignoring them when they turned to look. I don’t remember quite how the scene ended, but when the director called, “Cut,” those who had come to watch, broke out clapping loudly, hooting and whistling. The director nodded towards me, turned to them and said, “That’s what they give Oscars for.”

I often stood towards the back of the room when not working. Lou Diamond Phillips once came up to me, placing his arm around my shoulder, saying, “Do you know how good you are? Why do you stand in the back?” We all had a crush on him.

I didn’t know then what my efforts towards acting were preparing me for, the confidence and presence I was developing, the self-assurance that would one day serve me in work far from the acting world. The self that had been broken in my youth was being rebuilt. The light I emanated on camera slowly began to infuse me in real life. My bloom was going to be a late one, Claire. Something I could not have imagined in my thirties.

***

When I returned to class after the holidays, my endometriosis was worsening, the pain increasing. I made an appointment with a new specialist in Los Angeles. His opinion was that additional surgery was needed. He advised another course of induced menopause for several months. Hopefully the growths would shrink. It would make their removal safer. I would be required again, to begin daily injections of Lupron to interrupt my estrogen production.

I didn’t tell anyone. A couple of guys in the class approached me about working with them on a pilot then under development. No one could know about the menopause. Especially them.

The injections were subcutaneous. I slipped the needle under the skin of my thigh each day, and watched the fluid raise what looked like a smooth blister. I thought about what it was doing to my body, and my womanliness. I talked to my body; told her I was sorry.

I continued to attend class, wondering if anything going on inside of me, my hormones dwindling more and more with each passing day, was becoming evident to others. Did I have any pheromones? Was a part of me disappearing? I noticed some changes. My skin was drier, my breasts smaller. But my pain was diminishing. And I had more energy because of that.

A cat scan was done in early March. The growths had not diminished much. Still, surgery was advised and scheduled. I wanted to get off the drugs, wanted out of menopause. The pilot was still in the planning stages. I had a window. I would have to leave class, but not for too long.

The surgery was performed in late March at UCLA. On the afternoon before the procedure, I was given an inordinate amount of bowel cleansing drinks. Too much for the size and weight of my body. I could hardly get them down. Your father was staying not far the hospital. He had kept me company into the evening hours but needed to get some rest so he could return in the early morning. Several hours after he left the nausea began. I threw up multiple times during the night. While in the bathroom, too weak to hold myself up, I pressed the emergency call button near the toilet. A nurse came in, angry at me for pressing the call button. Her frustration and scolding exacerbated my discomfort. Your father arrived in my room at dawn, alarmed to find me so nauseous. I had been too ill to try and reach him at the motel during the night. Had not wanted to disturb his sleep. He tried to comfort me, rubbing my back. I threw up while on the gurney as I was wheeled into the operating room. I heard the bellowing voice of the anesthesiologist. “Why the hell is she vomiting?” It did not bode well.

Dozing off after I was returned from recovery, I awoke, startled, by what sounded like a fire alarm. There was a small fire in the hospital. The wing in which my room was located was closed off. We were not allowed to leave our rooms. Though short-lived, it was unsettling. I placed my hands in a gesture of protection on the thick gauze bandage covering the fresh incision. I wanted home and your father. The day had been a long one. He had left to get a bite to eat. Cell phones did not exist. I waited anxiously for his return.

My mother had driven down the day of the surgery. She had taken the coastal route, had seen dolphins, and mother whales with their calves making their way up from Baja. She said when she saw them, she knew it was an omen I would be okay.

The surgeon had not been able to perform the procedure laparoscopically. The major incision would take five weeks to heal. His attempt to remove the growths was only partially successful. Returning to class was not an option for the time being. I had plenty of time to consider my fate.

3

Interim

Claire, in late May, feeling recovered and adventuresome, I spent a week in Ashland, Oregon at the Shakespeare Festival, with a friend. The weather was gorgeous, the town of Ashland, lush, green, and charming. We purchased vintage, beaded cashmere sweaters at the thrift store, drank healing waters of Lithia Spring from the fountain in the square. We stayed in the university dorm, walking among the old trees on our way to the theater. I sat spellbound through Macbeth, weeping in the dark theater watching, All My Sons unfold, listening to “A Nightingale Sang in Barclay Square.” We fed the ducks on the pond in the park, sipped wine and nibbled on appetizers at Chateaubriand after the performances, where the actors unwound. It was fun watching for who might arrive, observing them out of character.

I had recently stopped the injections that had kept me in menopause, had not had a period yet. I was pain free that lovely week, away from home and any reminders of what I had been through the previous months.

I arrived back in Santa Barbara, filled with the nourishment, the inspiration, top notch theater, good company and superb acting can offer, my artistic and emotional well brimming with the wide gamut of joy, grief, tears, and laughter. Though exhausted, I looked forward to seeing your father. We made love. I barely remember it. Two weeks later my period failed to arrive. It felt reasonable to not have my period so soon after surgery and drugs. I had the summer to recover. I would return to AFI in the fall.

In June, we travelled to a friend’s ranch in the Ventana Wilderness for their informal wedding. I packed a beautiful blue chambray halter dress. We stopped in San Luis Obispo at a clothing store to pick up a new halter bra. In the dressing room I tried on the bra I had chosen, my size. I spilled out of it. A fleeting light of recognition passed through me, dissipating before it could be registered.

We arrived at the ranch and settled our things in the old cowboy bunkhouse. We walked along the creek, our feet barefoot among the stones in the cold water. We made love on the sandy bank where the creek widened into a small river, the overhanging trees sheltering us, the dappled sunlight coming through their leafy branches. Just being away from our usual cares and environment made it an adventure. We had dinner on the screened in porch, talked and laughed with our friends into the night, toasted them. We tried to make love in the bunkhouse again that night, covering each other’s mouths, until we broke out laughing. The plywood walls offered little privacy. We slept soundly and peacefully. I had no idea I was no longer alone in my body.