This wasn’t the last time my mother’s story appeared in print. In 1989, the same year as the magazine article, a book was published about Grace and her six bridesmaids. It was written by Judy Balaban Quine, one of the bridesmaids herself. The Bridesmaids: Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, and Six Intimate Friends followed each of their stories, including my mother’s. While Judy was working on the book, she had called to ask for an interview with me. At the time, I had said no. Back then, I didn’t feel that anything good could come from my mother’s story being out in the world.
When the book was released, however, I bought it immediately and read it closely. Judy described my mother’s upbringing in Steubenville, her time as a model, her marriage to my father. She was kind and gracious in her depiction of my mother’s descent from bridesmaid to shelter, but even so, there was much she didn’t know or wouldn’t say about Carolyn’s struggles.
For me, the book answered some questions and raised many others. In one section of the book, Judy mentioned that my mother had kept her daughters home from school due to illnesses. Memories of my years spent at home came flooding back to me. Was it possible I had missed as much time as I thought? How reliable was my memory of events?
I could no longer ask my father. If I asked my mother, I knew, her answers would only confuse me further. Jyl had been so much older than me; she had been busy with her own life by the time my absences became a real problem. As I tried to make sense of what was being written about my mother, I realized that I had no context for what had happened to me as a child. I had simply been too young to understand.
Perhaps if I applied for my school records, this might at least give me some concrete information. I called my high school, Cold Spring Harbor High. They confirmed they had my records. Not long after that, I drove out to Long Island. The woman in the office had the records waiting for me. I remember she commented that she’d never seen a folder as thick as mine; there were more than a hundred pages. She let me use the Xerox machine, and I carefully copied each record before driving home. Later that day, I took the pages to my room and began to read. Here were letters from the school principal begging my mother to send me to school. Letters from my mother canceling the tutors who were coming to my home to teach me. Letters from doctors confirming I was sick. Letters from doctors explaining that I was healthy. More than one hundred pages documenting the months and years of missed education, the failed attempts of the school to force my mother to send me to my classes.
I knew with certainty now that my mother had kept me home for the majority of my childhood without any real cause. Perhaps I had some minor legitimate health issues over the years, but nothing that warranted keeping me away from school for months on end.
After I’d finished reading the school records, I didn’t see my mother again for a number of months. I was too upset. Each morning I looked at my own children getting ready to go to school, and I tried to understand how a young girl could be denied an education for so many years without anyone coming to her rescue. I was angry with my mother, but I was also furious with my father, my school, the child welfare system—in fact, with anyone who’d failed to intervene on my behalf. The cost had been my education, the basic right of every child.
But the more I learned about my mother’s illness, the more I came to understand the role it had played. When she acted in such strange ways, had she been hearing voices in her head, telling her what to do? When she was anxious and withdrawn, was mental illness to blame? People with paranoid schizophrenia often hear voices; they can be anxious; they suffer from delusions. Did my mother imagine my illnesses? Were they just a part of her delusions?
I knew that in order to have any kind of relationship with her in the future I needed to talk to her about what I had learned. On Mother’s Day 1990, I decided I was ready. I arranged to meet my mother at the square on Fifty-eighth Street where she went each day to sit and pray. Then we walked together to the nearby diner for lunch, sitting down in the back room.
My mother began her usual update, telling me about the movement of the planets. On any other day, I would have done my best to listen, while avoiding meeting her eyes. This time, I looked at her squarely.
“Mom, I’ve seen my school records,” I said. “I know everything.”
For the first time, I talked openly with my mother about what had happened to me as a child.
“I want you to know that there was nothing wrong with me all those years ago,” I explained. “I was never sick. You kept me home for no reason.”
My mother turned and looked at me.
“You were having delusions,” I went on. “I know it wasn’t your fault. It was your illness.”
I explained to my mother that there were medications that could help her, if she would only take them.
“I want you to know that I forgive you,” I told her. “I have a good life now.”
I waited. I saw the recognition in her eyes, and I knew she had understood me.
Finally, my
