The Boston Girl(72)

Old friends are the best and I dedicated my book to them. It took me almost twenty years to finish. Unasked Questions came out the same year as The Feminine Mystique. Gussie was outraged that my book got lost in all the hoopla about Betty Friedan. “That woman stole your thunder.”

I told her not to be silly. I wrote my book for social workers; it was never going to be a best seller. But it was a success in its own way. It got me the teaching job at Boston University, and I got a lot of letters from women thanking me for writing it. I can’t tell you how much those meant to me.





I still miss him like crazy.

Your grandfather and I went to New Mexico twice. The first time was when the girls were twelve and fourteen. It was our first big family trip.

We went horseback riding and hiking, and Filomena took us to the Pueblo village where her teacher lived. Virginia was pretty frail by then, but she lit up when she saw Filomena. We were all invited inside to eat.

One night, Filomena kept the girls at her place for a sleepover. They camped outside and she woke them up in the middle of the night to watch a meteor shower. Your mother and your aunt Sylvia didn’t stop talking about it all the way back on the train.

Aaron and I made a second trip when the girls were in college. It was just the two of us that time. We got a sleeper car and drank wine in the dining car. It was like a second honeymoon.

We stayed with Filomena, who was living in a big house with her husband. I bet you weren’t expecting that. She got married when she was almost sixty and always said she was more surprised than anyone.

Saul Cohen was an art collector from Philadelphia who fell in love with Filomena’s pottery on a visit to Taos and bought everything she had to sell. Four weeks after they met, I got a telegram that started “Sit down.” It’s in the box with all her postcards.

They lived in Taos most of the year but Saul came back East a lot to see his children and grandchildren. Filomena came with him, so I got to see her pretty often. She was here for Miss Green’s funeral and for the fiftieth reunion of all the Saturday Club girls.

When Aaron died, she flew from New Mexico for the funeral and stayed with me for a whole month.

I still miss him like crazy. You should only have my luck in that department. Not that he was perfect. Your grandpa snored like a buzz saw and I never saw him eat a piece of fresh fruit. How can you not like apples or watermelon or even raspberries? It drove me nuts and I’m sure I drove him nuts hocking him about it.

As he got older, Aaron got set in his ways about a lot of things. He hated television—wouldn’t even watch PBS with me. To him, all popular music written after 1945 was garbage, and he thought I was only pretending to like the Beatles so my students would think I was cool.

But he did like trying new things: bread baking, guitar lessons, fishing. When we started renting the cottage in Gloucester, he read everything he could find about Cape Ann and asked the old Sicilians at the coffee shop on Main Street for stories. They adopted him and taught him how to swear in Italian and drink sambuca.

But after he found out that they were going to vote for Ronald Reagan, he took his newspaper to Dunkin’ Donuts and never talked to them again. He hated Reagan. I always thought that election had something to do with his getting sick.

—

Your grandfather was a peach. If he’d been at my birthday party, he would have made a speech so schmaltzy there wouldn’t have been a dry eye in the house. It’s a shame he wasn’t there, but it’s worse that he missed being at your sister’s wedding and at your graduation from Harvard. He would have been so proud. Harvard.

Like I said, I miss him like crazy. But life goes on.





| 1985 |





Now there’s something to look forward to.

My birthday party was wonderful, wasn’t it? So many people: the family, colleagues from Simmons and B.U., my graduate students, and my friends. Irene turns eighty-five next month, and Gussie with her walker but still going strong. Of course, I thought about everyone who wasn’t there, too: Miss Chevalier, Helen, Katherine, Betty and her Herman.

Filomena felt bad that she couldn’t make it, but her hip didn’t heal fast enough for her to travel. I’m thinking about flying out to see her. Don’t tell your mother, okay? She worries about me taking trips alone. Of course, I’d much rather be going with your grandfather.

But maybe you’d like to come with me? It’s such a beautiful part of the country and you’ve never been. You’re not going to have time for a real vacation once school starts and it would be my treat. Just you and me. As much as your Brian loves me, he’s not going to want to go on vacation with his grandmother-in-law. If you get married, that is.

Oh no. Maybe I am becoming a yenta after all!

But think about it anyway.

—

It was a little uncomfortable, all those birthday speeches about what an amazing human being I am. But hearing your mother and aunt say how lucky they are to have me as their mother? That’s a level of naches everyone should know.

Still, I have to tell you, it was a little like being at my own funeral. Which reminds me, I want you to make sure there is just as much joking and laughing when I die. You were the funniest of all: I can’t believe you told them that we smoked pot on my eightieth birthday.

Maybe you’ll put that in when you do the eulogy. And please, you do it. It would be too hard for your mother or your aunt, and it’s always so moving when a grandchild speaks.