With each new person who walked through the door, Maya’s h
ouse was full of laughter and love. My B!tches were there, along with Griffin and his new girlfriend, model Autumn Jorgenson. Even Diego had a girlfriend, a sixteen-year-old girl who lived in a neighboring house down the beach. Hannah was bleached blonde and tanned, virtually the opposite of my brooding brother. I personally thought they were adorable, especially the way she treated Diego like he was a superstar.
In fact, the only person missing from our crew was Sonny. He found a job in Los Angeles at a local casino in South Bay, so he moved in with my mother even despite my misgivings. I knew Maya was lonely, and despite how much better her life worked without him, she felt like she owed him a good life after all the misery they shared.
Now that her condition had worsened to the point she needed live-in care, I felt it a calculated risk to allow him to move back in. Diego escaped whenever he could, often staying with Jace and I in the extra bedroom he had pretty much claimed as his own.
I didn’t want to deal with Sonny either, so I accommodated him however I could.
Needless to say, neither of us was too brokenhearted he couldn’t join us for our early holiday extravaganza.
Graham sat with Maya while we cooked dinner. He knew how to turn on the charm and make her feel like the lovely hostess she was. And none of my B!tches allowed her to lift one finger. They waited on her hand and foot, which essentially made her the honored guest at her own party.
We set up long tables to facilitate all the food. There was every option available, both for vegetarians and vegans like Yael and Felix, and carnivores like Griffin and Diego. We made a ham, a turkey, roast beef and tofurkey. There were mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and a sweet corn casserole. We roasted winter vegetables, including zucchini and acorn squash. The B!tches and I had stayed up the night before making pumpkin and pecan pies. Maggie brought a strawberry rhubarb pie with her.
Everything was served by three in the afternoon, and we picked at our feast until midnight. We interspersed a multi-holiday movie marathon with music. Griffin, Diego and Yael all strummed their guitars to provide entertainment, while all the singers took turns singing their favorite holiday songs.
We exchanged gifts by ten o’clock. I gave Maya a new dress, and she gave me a microphone she had studded herself. “It’s beautiful,” I said as I leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I’ll use it every night on tour.”
She
touched my face with her hand. “Take me outside, Jordana.”
I nodded and rolled her out onto her patio, which had been decorated with festive blue lights. She pulled me down to sit on the chair next to her wheelchair. “I wanted to thank you,” she said. “You gave me the greatest gift today. You’ve given me a family. I spent my whole life not knowing where I belong. I’m so glad that same curse didn’t fall on you.”
I took her hand in mine. “I have a family,” I said. “I have you. Mama,” I added with tears in my eyes.
She welled up, too. “I was an orphan. I never wanted that for you or for Diego. I saw what it did to Joey and to me.”
I held my breath. Was she finally ready to talk about my dad?
“He was an orphan, too,” she confessed. “His mother was from Iowa. A runaway. She moved to New York to make it big on Broadway. According to your dad, she could sing like a bird. But she made some wrong turns and ended up destitute. She had to turn to undesirable ways to make money. I don’t even think she knew who Joey’s father was.”
I gulped hard. More skeletons in the Hemphill family closet. Super.
“Things were hard for her. And she wasn’t strong like you. She got lost.” Maya took a long breath. “She began to idolize those things she left behind. Joey was raised to believe that small-town Americana was the ideal
, so much so that he had adopted all her cherished memories of Iowa as his own. When she died, he was only twelve. He was so young and so innocent and so confused. That’s when I met him. I watched him use that dream to get him through those long, lonely days when we belonged to no one but each other.”
She smiled. “It was a lovely dream. And it sounded better than anything I had ever experienced. So we planned for the day we could break free and find whoever was left of his family in Iowa. It took us years. By the time we hit Iowa, Joey was incapable of seeing it as anything other than everything he wanted it to be. Aunt Verna took us in, but we worked harder there on that farm than we ever did on the road. She was obligated to help us, because he was the last remaining blood relative she had. But there were standards and I knew I couldn’t meet them. Not like Marianne.”
I made a face. “You shouldn’t compare yourself to her, Mama. There’s a lot you don’t know.”
She chuckled, but with effort. “You mean that pig, Shane?” she asked. “I knew she had been with him. And Joey would have known had he been able to let go of that childhood dream.”
I said nothing. I hadn’t confided in Maya about Shane yet, and I doubted I ever would. It would have killed her to know what had happened with my dad, and then later with me.
“He wanted roots so bad. He even changed his name, finding ‘Hemphill’ in some Iowa cemetery that was said to be full of his relatives.”
“What was his name?” I asked.
Her eyes widened as they met mine. “They never told you?”
I shook my head.
She held my hand. “It was Jordan.”
I gasped as I let that soak in. “You named me after my dad?”
She smiled. “I named you after the 12-year-old boy I fell in love with. Why do you think Marianne calls you Jordi, rather than Jordana?”
“But why?” I squeaked.
“I wanted you to take him, who he really was,
with you wherever you went, no matter who you turned out to be. Hemphill was who he wanted to be. Jordan was who he was. And there was nothing at all wrong with that boy. He was perfectly imperfect. It gave me permission to be the same.”
“Mama,” I
said as I reached to hold her.
Our conversation tired her out, so I rolled her back into the apartment. I helped her into one of her many pretty nightgowns, which she now protected against any food stains or anything that might soil it. They were her “pretties” and she squealed with delight whenever I bought her a new one. She preferred bright pastels, like pinks and yellows, which decorated her life with cheer she had waited a whole lifetime to experience.
She grasped my hand as she settled against the pillows. She always slept better if she slept in a reclining position. “Thank you for such a beautiful day.”
I smiled and gave her another kiss. “I figured you deserved one perfect day.”
She gripped my hand with all the strength in her frail body. “The day you came back was my perfect day.”
I sobbed softly as I hugged her close. I really couldn’t believe I was about to go on a four-month tour away from my mother after such a long journey to find her. But her health prevented her from traveling along, and she wouldn’t hear of my postponing the tour.
She had agreed to our holiday extravaganza, but her failing health prevented her from ringing in our “new year.”
We respectfully dispersed, leaving Diego and Hannah to stay with her as we all split the food and went back to our busy, creative lives.
Later, in bed with Jace, I still marveled that the question I had been asking the entire year had been right in front of me the whole time. But oddly, the revelation didn’t make me feel any different. “I thought it would change everything to finally know who I was.”
He caressed my hair with his hand. “When I lost my leg, I lay in that hospital bed for weeks trying to reconcile this new body with my old life. In many ways, Jace as I knew him died on that dusty road. I spent just as long rewiring my brain to accept these new circumstances as I did getting mobile again. Everything I thought I knew about myself changed in an instance. And I wasn’t able to move forward until I let a lot of that go. And look what happened. A new Jace emerged. A singer of all things. And now he tours the country, he won the heart of a beautiful woman. He li
ves the life of a rock star. So what the hell was I hanging onto?”
I looked up at him. He pulled me close. “You haven’t lived until you’ve reinvented yourself at least once, Jordi. Life is transformation. You can never go forward until you stop looking back. And you certainly can’t transcend the circumstances of others. Look at your dad. He set someone else’s standard as his ideal. How different would his life have been had he celebrated the clean slate he had been given?”
“There’s no way to know,” I said sadly.
“Yeah, there is,” he corrected. “You’re living proof. You gave yourself a clean slate, babe. And it was the best thing that ever happened. It brought us together.” He traced my face with his fingers. “You are my clean slate, Jordi. You are my transformation every single day.”
“Jace,” I said softly.
“Marry me, Jordana,” he whispered.
I reached up for a kiss. “When the tour is over,” I murmured softly, “ask me again.”
He deepened the kiss and pressed me back onto the bed.
Just as he peeled my top from my body, my cell phone rang. It was Diego. He was at the hospital with my mother.
Whether or not I was ready, life was about to transform me once again.
Los Angeles, CA
October 14, 2012
Jace and I got to the hospital a little after two o’clock in the morning. Diego was already there, trying his level best to steer clear of Sonny. “How is she?” I asked him as I hugged him close.
“She
was unconscious when I found her,” Diego cried into my shirt as he held me tight. “I couldn’t get her to respond, or even wake up.”
“It’ll be OK,” I assured as I cuddled him close. “Let’s find the doctor.”
Unfortunately, the doctor did not give me the news I had hoped. Her lung had collapsed and her heart had failed. He spoke of hospice and how to ease her suffering, rather than how to make her better.
“This is a progressive disease,” the doctor told me gently. “It’s not going to get any better. According to your mother’s medical directive, she has agreed for a DNR. She’s tired of suffering, Miss Hemphill. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is let our loved ones go.”
I turned to Diego, who sobbed shamelessly and softly into his hands. I held him tight as I nodded to the doctor to do what Maya wanted him to do.
She lasted for three days in hospice, blissfully unconscious as nature ran its course. Diego and I stayed every single day by her side, until she finally slipped away as we both held her hands. We held her memorial on the beach by her house, though I sat motionless and oblivious and completely disconnected to the process. I couldn’t remember what was said, or what songs were played. All I could remember was the constant ebb and flow of the waves, which would ultimately house my mother’s cremated remains.
It was the ultimately unfairness. I finally found her only to lose her months later. Jace tried to comfort me, saying at least I was able to give her those few months. I rescued her from her unhappy, impoverished life. She got to see things she wouldn’t have otherwise, including both of her children on stage living out their dreams.
But I was angry, and nothing he said touched it. What would have happened if I had found her sooner? What more could I have done for her?
I blamed Marianne Hemphill for my misery, so much so that I wanted to fly promptly to Iowa and tear into both her and Shane for all they had done to wreck my life.
“Baby, think this through. Your life isn’t wrecked. You’re grieving. It’s nor
mal to feel anger. Maybe you should call Dr. Challis. I think he could help you manage these feelings.”
“Are you calling me crazy?” I demanded through tears. I was crying a lot lately; even making a grocery list could set me off. The last thing I needed was my boyfriend suggesting that I was hysterical.
I knew I was hysterical. Everything had spiraled out of control yet again.
It
sparked an epic fight that sent me to stay with Diego in the beach house. Sonny had split for Vegas to play the mourning boyfriend there, so that left Diego alone when he absolutely didn’t need to be.
I used that as my excuse to let myself into the empty house, only Diego was nowhere to be found. I texted him and he quickly replied he was with Hannah.
He asked if I wanted them to join me, but I told him that wasn’t necessary.
Maybe being alone with my mother’s ghost was really all I wanted.
I didn’t turn on any lights as I made my way through the darkened apartment toward my mother’s room in the back. All the medical equipment had been returned. All her clothes had been packed. Diego had offered to stay through the weekend to pack all the belongings before he would come to live with Jace and me in the Hollywood Hills, and he had made significant progress. It already felt empty, though the furniture was still in place. There were sheets on her bed, which I crawled into to sob softly as I hugged one of her pillows close.
I couldn’t believe it had happened again. Life had leveled another blow, right as everything else had started to work out.