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WE ARRIVED AT Lourdes late at night. My mother found us a room in a small pension not far from the river. In the morning, we woke early to the sounds of church bells echoing and a soft mist hanging over the town. Ever since leaving New York, my mother had been tense and distracted, but now she was calm, as close to happiness as I can remember her. We were finally in Lourdes, and the shrine, she believed, would change our lives. After breakfast, we made our way past the cathedral and down to the river. Crowds were gathering, everyone walking in the same direction, people in wheelchairs or walking with canes, the elderly and the sick, holding on to family members and friends. All along the river there were stands selling figures of Mary and bottles of holy water.
My mother had been brought up Methodist, but Catholicism fascinated her. Her birth father had been Catholic, and when she visited him as a teenager, she had attended a Catholic summer camp. From a young age, she had fallen in love with the dramatic stories of the saints, and she had a special affection for the Virgin Mary. Part of her bond with Grace—who was born a Catholic—was that her friend had taken Saint Bernadette as her patron at her confirmation.
We went down toward the river and across a small bridge. On every side of us, people were walking silently. We could hear singing ahead. In the near distance, we could see a church perched on a bluff, with deep crevices in the craggy rock below. I knew immediately that this was the grotto where Bernadette saw her visions of the Virgin Mary. We followed the crowd through the gates toward the hollowed cave. Above us, there was a giant white statue of the Virgin Mary, her hands pressed together in prayer, a trickle of water wetting the stone directly below her feet. The people ahead of us went up to the rock and started running their hands along it. Some had brought bouquets of flowers as offerings to the Virgin. Others sat on rows of seats, as if in a church, or stood lost in their thoughts or prayers.
My mother walked toward the Virgin, her hands clasped. I could see she had tears rolling down her cheeks. Robin and I were right beside her. We had come all this way. It couldn’t be for nothing. I waited for the change to sweep through me. I screwed up my eyes, pressed my hands together, and asked Saint Bernadette and the Virgin to take care of me, my mother, and my family. Please make Robin better. Please make my mother happy. Please just let everything be okay.
Later in the day, we collected holy water from the little faucets in the rock face, taking sips from our bottles. By the time we left Lourdes the following day, my mother was convinced that we were cured and that a new chapter in our lives was about to begin. But Robin was still unwell. We saw various doctors in Cannes, including a chiropractor and a general practitioner. We visited the English hospital, where she saw a specialist, but by now, there was no money left to pay for medicine. My mother called the palace in Monaco, hoping that Grace was back from her trip and could help us. Grace’s secretary explained that Grace was still away but that the princess wanted to do whatever she could to help. Eventually, an arrangement was made: the secretary would meet my mother and lend her the money for our passage home. My father would repay Grace as soon as he could.
The secretary gave my mother an address, and we went there directly. It was an apartment in Nice, near the waterfront, large and glamorous. There were mirrors on every wall redoubling the sunshine outside, and there seemed to be something made of silver on every surface—silver candelabra, silver picture frames, silver statuettes. Outside the windows the waters of the Côte d’Azur glinted their response. Did the apartment belong to the princess? Or one of her friends? I can’t remember. The secretary gave my mother an envelope with the money inside; then we left the apartment and returned to the waterfront. (The following year, my father repaid my mother’s debt, while he was on a business trip in Europe.) With the money loaned us by Grace, I could finally buy a new outfit. I remember Robin and I wandered the back streets of Nice looking in the little stores and boutiques for something I liked. Robin helped me pick out mauve-colored brushed-cotton jeans with a matching long-sleeved T-shirt decorated with Indian-style embroidery. I loved that my new outfit looked just like something Robin would wear. I felt older, more sophisticated, no longer the baby.
I never did get to see Aunt Grace while we were in France. The following day, my mother bought us tickets on the SS Raffaello, leaving from Cannes and bound for New York. I’ll never know for sure what was going through her mind that day as she stood on the ship’s deck, watching the red rooftops and sparkling white buildings of Cannes recede from view, but I can imagine. As the boat tugged its way through the waters, leaving France behind in its wake, with every second that passed, she was being carried back to Long Island, to the Dream House, where Malcolm was waiting.
CHAPTER 13
Carolyn
It was always the case that what my father wanted was not what my mother would have chosen. In 1957, the year after Grace’s wedding, Malcolm announced he was no longer satisfied with the apartment at the Manhattan House.
