Page 97 of Storm in a D Cup

I turned to her. ‘Please take care of my kids…’

‘Of course, you don’t even have to mention that…’

‘Thank you,’ I choked. Dad.Dear,dear old Dad…

*

It was a three-flight ordeal; Siena–Milan, Milan–New York, New York–Boston, for a total of twenty hours including the stopovers. I don’t even remember boarding the Milan–New York flight, but as I sat there all strapped in, staring over the sea of heads in front of me, an elderly couple kept turning to look at me worriedly. I must have looked like a real mess. Maybe they even thought I was a terrorist debating at the last moment whether to go ahead with my kamikaze mission.

I pulled out my compact mirror. Nothing new in there, except that I didn’t recognize me at all. Even though I had never been a dead ringer for Angelina Jolie, the woman in my mirror looked like an overstuffed scarecrow with deep-sunken eyes.

How had this happened so suddenly? How could Dad just have suddenly died? He hadn’t been ill but I should’ve seen the signs. We all should have. And then I remembered I actually had, during the last family trip/row.

I remembered the humiliation Marcy had put us all through at the table, firing upon everyone and anyone, for no reason at all, and Dad telling her to please calm down.

Which she hadn’t. She had, if anything, continued putting him through hell. Marcy had been driving Dad crazy for years, and he was all the weaker for it. Everyone knows that unhappiness will lower your autoimmune system. A lack of serenity and happiness will do that to you. For years my dad had been suffering in silence, missing my real mother, the love of his life.

I remember Dad having that moment when he had appeared to be spaced out. Had he had a stroke and none of us had realized?

Julian.I suddenly realized how much I needed him.

I knew he was still mad at me, but this was bigger than both of us. He would understand and forgive me for not believing him and shutting him out. Or rather, I hoped. Because, although Julian was the greater of the two of us, I had really screwed the pooch this time.

And then I thought about Marcy, and what she must have been going through. Would she be strong enough to uphold the rest of the family, let alone herself?

I pictured my brother Vince in tears, nearly keeling over while Judy made an effort to hold them both up, one on each side of her. Because I wasn’t there when it happened. And it was taking me a whole damn day to get back.

‘It’s never as bad as it seems,’ came a soft, strangled voice. I opened my eyes and found a kind, wrinkly face only inches from my own.

‘Love comes and goes. The only problem that can’t be dealt with is death.’

I stared at the elderly woman who was being so kind to me. And because she had absolutely no idea of what she was talking about. I smiled and nodded, murmuring a thank you, although on the inside I was screaming.

*

Like the Jews who roamed the land for forty years, so did I the New York terminal looking for my connection, but all the letters on the screen made me so dizzy I thought I would collapse from sheer exhaustion. My mouth felt like someone had forced a bale of hay down my throat and my head felt like someone had been bashing my brains in for hours on end.

‘Erica?’ came a voice from behind me.

I whirled around and, after a moment of ultra-shock added to my already existing shock, focused on the familiar and yet not so familiar face.

‘Ira…?’ I breathed. He looked terrible.

‘You look amazing, Erica.’

Years of doing my best and he never noticed and now that I looked like shit he comes out and compliments me.

‘You’re about nine years late,’ I said and his brow shot up.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ I said hastily.

‘Oh. I’m heading for Atlantic City. I’m waiting for… some buddies of mine.’

Yeah, right.

‘And you? I heard you were in Italy.’

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