Just before it opens and blooms, the Lipstick Plant looks like a beautiful red tube of lipstick. Too little sun, and it won’t bloom; too much water and the roots will rot. The Lipstick plant needs just the right amount of attention to thrive, like my younger sister Lynne who thrived in spite of too little nurturing, a testimony to her survival skills.
I was always jealous of Lynne because Kathy, 18 months older than me, received constant attention by being disruptive, Lynne, 18 months younger, got attention because she was adorable and helpless. Lynne and I shared a room, but I tortured her constantly: When she was six, I locked her in the closet and threatened to beat her up with my baton if she dared tell. Downstairs was a small guestroom, so to escape my constant cruelty, Lynne moved in. The room was freezing in winter and unbearably hot during summer. It was also scary because Lynne was all alone on the ground floor right by the front door.
I don’t think my father ever hit her and he never touched her inappropriately. Lynne and I fought constantly. We even had a fight over who would wear which black hat for my father’s funeral. A year after he died, my mother moved from Philadelphia to New York. Lynne and I shared the second bedroom. We were both in college, so we only saw each other during school vacations, but we continued to argue about everything.
Soon after I graduated college, I went to Paris on a $200 Columbia University charter flight and decided to stay. It was in 1965, the days when long distance cost a fortune and cell phones, Skype and Zoom had not yet been invented. I knew it was too expensive for my mother to call, so finally, I could escape her constant criticism and disappointment that I was not yet married. I was free.
One day, after living in Paris only six months, Lynne showed up unannounced. I was living with John, an American ex-pat film director who would become my first husband. John and I had just moved in together, so Lynne’s timing could not have been worse. I don’t remember if I kicked her out or if she chose to leave, but after a few hours, she hadn’t put her used coffee cup in the sink, so I exploded. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the coffee cup. Lynne left. I looked out from the terrace to where she was struggling with her suitcase. looking for a taxi. I wanted to call her back but couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. I finally had my own life, separate from her and my mother. I wanted nothing to do with either of them. It was probably the cruelest thing I ever did to her, and it haunts me to this day.
Four years later, after I moved back from Paris to NYC, I divorced husband #1, who I will tell you about later. Lynne and I developed a semi-amiable relationship because by then, we were both divorced and lonely. A few weekends we’d take the bus together to a yoga retreat near Woodstock, NY, sipping the entire way from a gallon jug of Gallo wine. Once there, we’d smoke pot and spend the weekend doing yoga. About ten years later, she met Howard, and has been with him ever since. I met husband #2 (more about him later), so except for when we visited Kathy, we didn’t see much of each other.
It is now 40 years later, and we finally understand and appreciate each other, especially as we are the last two living in the entire Goldsmith family. Often, we’ll share our memories. She’ll say, “Do you remember when we lived in Jenkintown and Daddy was mowing the lawn and he mowed everything except that big rectangular patch in the middle?”
“No.” I had no recollection.
“How can you not remember that?” she’d ask. “He mowed everything except the very center where he left this unmoved area the size of a casket and said, “’That’s for my coffin.”’
I’d offer, “Remember the anchovies?”
“What anchovies?” she’d ask.
“He took the three of us shopping at the A&P and when we went to leave, the manager stopped him and said, ‘Don’t you have something in your pocket you want to return?’ Daddy turned crimson and said, ‘Who me? I have nothing.” And the manager said, ‘If you don’t take that out of your pocket now, I’m going to have to call the police.’
My father’s eyes looked mournful as he said, “Please, have a heart. Not in front of my daughters.” He took the anchovies out of his pocket, handed the little tin to the manager and said, “They must have fallen into my pocket.”
The manager said, “If this ever happens again, I‘ll have you arrested.”
Another time Lynn might remind me of the time we went to Strawbridge and Clothier, and my father bought an outdoor cherry wood picnic table with two benches. “And,” Lynne said, “As we were leaving, he whispered, ‘Don’t say a word, because I want to see if the salesman is calling me a sucker behind my back.’”
Once I got up the courage to ask, “Do you remember when we were sitting in the dining room table and Mommy was in the kitchen and he touched me?”
Lynne made a face and said, “You were wearing a red plaid flannel shirt, and he made you sit on his lap and felt you up. It was disgusting.”
Eventually we’d run out of ‘do-you-remembers,’ because sometimes memories are so painful that it’s easier to bury them than dredge up the past. The important thing is that ten years ago we finally stopped fighting and became friends. I was about to have a Whipple procedure to remove a cancerous tumor in the head of my pancreas, an operation from which people sometimes die. Lynne and Howard not only took me to the hospital and were waiting when I was brought up to my room, but she came to visit every day, even though she hates hospitals.
Two years later, I had Stage Four pancreatic cancer, and they removed my entire pancreas. Lynne visited every day. Two years after that, I developed lung cancer, and they took out my lower right lobe. She was there. A year after that, I woke up in a bed full of blood, an ulcer bleed. My blood pressure was 60 over 40 and I almost bled out before the ambulance arrived. Lynne was waiting for me in the E.R. I have had 17 hospital visits since 2014, and Lynne has been there for me every time. And ever since the Whipple, she calls each night just to make sure I’m still breathing. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.
.
Yes that’s love.
Loved this, Margie! I remember meeting Lynne several times and really liked her. So happy you two are close! This is beautifully written.