I was fourteen months old at the time. I have no recollection of these events, but if my father did move out, he must have come back again, as my parents stayed together for another thirteen years. In the book The Bridesmaids, Judy Balaban Quine writes that Grace insisted Malcolm invented the affair. “Grace had met Malcolm before he and Carolyn knew one another, but she had never gone out with him. She couldn’t imagine why Malcolm would prolong this fiction of a romance between them, especially at a time when it might so wound Carolyn.”
Another one of Grace’s biographers seemed to suggest that the affair did take place but after Grace was married and living in Monaco. That just didn’t seem feasible to me—how could Grace and Malcolm have managed it, living so many thousands of miles apart? Surely if something had happened between them it would have been when they were both living at the Manhattan House, years before Grace moved to Monaco. Was it possible my father had exaggerated details of the relationship and his connection to Grace in order to impress others? Was it possible that my mother was having delusions after my birth and invented the whole thing? I had seen the pain in my mother’s eyes in the nursing care center when she talked about the affair; as if the betrayal had happened only yesterday. I believed her when she said the affair had taken place, but what evidence did I have beyond my mother telling me so?
The only people who could confirm the affair were Grace and Malcolm, and they both were gone. What I did know was that my mother never held anything against her friend. If there was an affair, she forgave Grace completely. And although Grace never came back to visit us on Long Island, the princess continued to write to my mother, and my mother continued to write letters in return. Despite the separation of miles and the troubles of the past, Grace and Carolyn’s connection, forged in youth and hope, continued.
* * *
I DECIDED TO contact Judy Balaban Quine, Grace’s close friend who had written the book about the princess and her bridesmaids. We talked first on the phone. I told Judy that I wished I had spoken to her when she was working on her book, but I had been too afraid, too protective of my mother and her story. Now I understood the importance of connecting with the people who had known my mother—and I hoped we could meet in person soon. Judy invited me to visit her in Beverly Hills next time I was in Los Angeles to see my son. We arranged to meet at an Italian restaurant near her home. That day, Judy was waiting for me when I arrived, still elegant in her eighties, warm and bright-eyed. That night, we talked and talked. She was so compassionate, so understanding. I learned that in the course of researching her book, Judy had met with my mother while she was living at the shelter, interviewing her multiple times. They sat together in Central Park, or once, when it was raining, retreated to the Barbizon Hotel, where Judy rented a room for the afternoon so they could stay warm and dry. When my mother asked Judy to buy her some small items—socks and underwear—Judy set up an account at Bloomingdale’s so that my mother could purchase whatever she needed. I had no idea that Judy had done this for my mother and I was so grateful.
Then I asked Judy about Grace. Judy explained to me that Grace had guessed something was very wrong with my mother’s mental state after the move to Long Island, but like so many people, had no idea what to do or how to help. She reminded me that the 1960s and 1970s were a time when the stigma around mental health kept everyone in silence, not only sufferers but friends and relatives, too. Could Grace have done more for my mother? From a distance of thousands of miles, sequestered in her palace and her role as princess, what would have been possible? It was very hard to say.
That night, leaving the restaurant with Judy, I told her I wished we lived closer to each other. Being able to talk to someone who had known my mother and Grace, someone who cared about my mother, someone I could be completely open with, brought me a kind of comfort I had never experienced before.
* * *
DURING THIS TIME of searching and trying to understand the past, I found myself confronting questions that had dogged me for a lifetime. Growing up, I had been kept out of school for the majority of my childhood, by a mother with a severe mental illness. Why hadn’t someone—the school, my father, the authorities—stepped in to save me? Why had it been up to me to remove myself from my mother’s care?
I began to wonder how my case would have been handled if I were a child in the education system today. Would things have been different? Would the authorities have taken greater action? I arranged to go back to my old elementary school to meet with the principal there, to see if I could learn more. I knew that I couldn’t fix the past by speaking with the principal—she hadn’t even been working at the school when I was a child; I just knew it was something I felt strongly compelled to do.
The night before going back to the school, I had a dream. I was in the living room at my home. My husband asked me to pick up a blanket that had fallen to the floor. I tried to lift the blanket, but it was out of reach. I wanted to let Peter know that I couldn’t pick up the blanket, but when I tried to speak, the words wouldn’t come out. It was as if something was pressing down on me, suffocating me.
