Diamond Girl

Chapter 4



My diagnosis hit my mother hard. It had to have been really devastating for her because I think, by the time she found out, she had been able to convince herself her position was permanent, despite not having produced Kells VI which, after all, wasn’t her fault. I’m sure she reminded my father, and the other Kellehers, the sex of a child was dictated by the man, wasn’t it?

Of course it was, she knew that, and she had produced two beautiful little girls, one of which – me - was a perfect spit of Kells, and he was clearly crazy about me, in as much as Daddy could be crazy about anything. Mother might have been feeling in the clear until the horrible news that her oldest child had a debilitating, incurable life-long, life-threatening illness. Any natural woman in my mother’s position would have been upset, and she was. My Aunt Georgia didn’t hesitate to point out that there had never been a case of juvenile diabetes in the Kelleher family yet, and so the only conclusion that could be drawn was …

”Well, darling, what else can we think? And poor Kells, so hard on him, his little girl, and this on top of having no son. I don’t know, I can’t imagine what he must be feeling.” Aunt Georgia, a true Kelleher by birth, and even by name, was not a subtle woman, and despite seven failed marriages, she still believed that everyone enjoyed hearing her opinions.

My mother wasn’t subtle either. She was the daughter of a large Kansas meat packing family, and by that I mean that both my grandparents worked in the Spam factories there. My mother had made it out of Kansas and onto the pages of Vogue by dint of some serious good looks and some even more serious ass-kicking abilities. Her marriage to my father was a step up of almost unprecedented social climbing and she knew that, as a Kelleher wife, she would have to spend her entire life pretending to be as genteel and unworldly as one of the British Royals. Because she was not a born American aristocrat, she was forever banned from talking or acting in any honest way. If she did, eyebrows in New York would raise, Spam jokes would be made and once that starts, a disgraced New York trophy wife can end up pretty quick in a New Jersey McMansion ordering her spring wardrobe off QVC. It crippled her nature of stone-hard bitchiness and made her interactions with my aunt, a 'real' Kelleher, excruciating.

But from one iron-hard bitch to another, she was smart enough to recognize the truth of my aunt’s observation and wonder what indeed her husband was feeling and, worse, what might he be planning.

In families like mine, there aren’t really pre-nups in the way people think of them today. As in the case of the Hearst family, or the Hunts, dozens of years ago the reigning head of the family sat down with a friendly group of twenty or so trust lawyers and built a wall around our family money so that strangers, i.e. people who married in, couldn’t get much of it. The way it works in our family is this: stay married to a Kelleher and, if you outlive one of us, you might get some very serious change. For example, my great uncle’s fifth wife, Bonita, who was twenty and a kennel worker at his estate, married him when he was eighty-two and he left her a flat billion dollars. My cousins contested it but the jury, not understanding why or how they saw themselves as destitute on their own half billion dollar trusts, sided with the lucky servant and now she is richer than many born Kelleher’s, though not those on Daddy's side of the family. Conversely, marry and be divorced by a Kelleher, and you might end up living in a kennel yourself, because once our trusts go into effect, they are impossible to break into or take much from. It would require an act of Congress to do so, and let me tell you, Congress is very fond of our family.

Knowing this before she married my father hadn’t stopped my mother from betting on herself. I’m sure, going in, she planned to be the perfect wife. Maybe she even convinced herself that she loved him. He is very loveable, at least I think so. But once in, she lost sight of how she got in. She must have been dazzled, stunned, at just how much money there was. Want a plane? Why not buy and gut a 737, and cover the seats with extinct rhino and polar bear skins? Want a diamond? Well sure, all girls love diamonds, but if the current Kells’ wife wears a diamond, it can’t be any old diamond, because by virtue of her wearing it, it will forever be called the 'Kelleher diamond'. It must be a unique diamond, a blood diamond, literally: a thirty-two carat diamond with history, something cool like the Hope diamond, maybe a little royal blood on it, or a robbed Pharaoh’s tomb.

Having and spending this kind of money is a full-time job, at least it was for my mother. Yeah, there were two little girls, but I don’t think she was able to feel the warmth of acquisition when she looked at us. Rather we were the price of admission and now she found out one of her golden tickets was a phony. Her feelings of growing security as Mrs. Kells V were thrown into disarray.

In her own defense she came up with a plan. If 'out of sight out of mind' was the banner for every woman in that tough town, then it might work for children too.

It was about a week after my diagnosis, and two days after my first shots. Like any little kid I was terrified of needles, and to be told, and to have been shown graphically, what my new disease meant in terms of them had sent me into a state of terror and hysteria. It was bedtime and my brand new nurse, Sylvia, was looking for me, needle in hand. Desperate to evade her, I scrambled down to the second floor, planning to hide under my parents' bed.

Their room was off-limits to all staff, excepting my mother’s personal maid. Since they were never home at night and never got home before midnight, I figured I could wait her out. I was shocked when I got to the double doors of their suite and heard their voices inside. I hesitated, but when I crept to the bottom of the stairs, I could hear Sylvia wandering around softly calling for me. I ran back and huddled against their doors, too afraid of my mother to go in - I knew she would just screech for Sylvia - and too afraid of the needle to go back upstairs. That is how I overheard them. It was an accident; no eavesdropper would want this much information, no one would choose to hear something that over twenty years later I still can’t forget.

My mother’s faux-genteel accent was slipping, her Kansas was showing. Whatever she was asking from Daddy that night was obviously taking a toll. I heard my name and the word 'Canada', and I listened more intently.

My mother said, “Darling, come on, Kells, this is right for Carolyn. Venta is the most wonderful school.”

My father’s angry voice slapped back at her. “Ellen, I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I will assume that you are unhinged with worry over Carey’s illness and I will try very hard to forget that you ever mentioned this in the first place. I will do this in the interests of my little girl if you never speak of it again.”

“But, Kells, don’t you see, it’s the only thing we can do for Carolyn. This … this disease, it will set her apart from the other children at Buckley, and with her hysterical fear of needles, I mean, really, you cannot imagine the scene this morning. At any rate, it will give her new people and events to focus on, and a new world to explore.” She paused for breath and finished on a triumphant note while I chewed on my knuckles to keep my sobs from escaping. “Venta is an international preparatory academy. Carolyn is being given this chance in spite of her illness. I am certain that she will see it as the treat I envision it being for her.”

“It’s in Ottawa, for Christ’s sake, Ellen. It’s some nowhere and nobody school in Ottawa, in Canada, and though you may not be aware of this, Ellen, Kellehers do not go abroad for their educations, not that I would consider Canada abroad. My children are not going to be raised as Euro trash, my dear, glamorous as that might be to you. But no, this isn’t Le Rosay, is it, Ellen? It’s some Canadian preparatory academy established five years ago, doubtless the only place you could find that would be willing to take such a small child, and a sick one at that. Ahh, I’ve surprised you … yes indeed. I read the brochure, not because I had any intention of sending my child away but because I was honestly curious as to how far you would go to send a sick little girl away from her home.”

I hugged myself and sniffled. Those were more words than I had ever heard Daddy say at one time. My mother’s voice, when she answered, was high and plaintive. She sounded frightened … and I was glad of it.

“Kells, please darling, that isn’t what I was trying to do at all. It’s just … it’s very … difficult for me to see her like this, and I am sure that she picks up on my distress, and you know the doctor said that stress can exacerbate this illness.”

My father’s voice when he spoke was much closer to me, as though he was leaning against the door. “Ellen, I am only going to say this once, so hear me. I love my daughter, I want my daughter. Unlike you, I do not run from the sight of my daughter. As to your distress, I will admit that I am at a loss. How can Carey’s illness be upsetting to you since you never see her, and by that same token, how can she pick up on your distress since she hardly knows you? She is a wonderful little girl but not psychic. If you are uncomfortable with Carey and with her illness, you may go. My daughter, a Kelleher, will remain here at her home as always. Good evening, Ellen.”

Before I could scramble up and get away, Daddy was outside in the hallway with me. He gave a muffled oath and leaned down and pulled me up to him. He kissed the side of my head. “What are you doing out here, Carey K?”

Trying and failing to stop crying, I answered him in gulping, incoherent sobs. “Needles and I … don’t … I don’t want ... Please, Daddy, let … me stay … I’ll take my shots.”

He rubbed my back. “Shh. I’m afraid of needles too, Carey K. I hate them, really, and you are never, ever, ever going away …” Steel-eyed he stared at my mother who had joined us in the hall, her face tight with rage and fear. “… Is she Ellen?”

She gave me a predatory smile and reached out for me. I clutched Daddy’s neck harder and he began walking us away to the staircase, saying over his shoulder, “My, Ellen, she is as afraid of you as she is of the needles. Both are so sharp, though, it’s understandable. I am going to sit with Carey while she has her shot and until she sleeps, then I am going out for a while. When I return, maybe you will have gone out. That is what I would like this evening … maybe this week. Are we in accord, Ellen?”

“Kells, no, darling, please. I am sorry, I didn’t mean …”

“Don’t apologize to me, Ellen, apologize to my daughters. It does make me wonder: if you cannot be a mother to my children, then what can you do, Ellen?”

Mother may have tried to answer, but we were up a flight already, far from hearing her.

For the rest of that week I didn't see her, and I was glad. It was almost worth the needles, though, when I thought about not who had said those things about me, but what she was supposed to be - a mother, my mother, the only one I would ever have - then I felt sick and dizzy, like I did when I sneaked a candy bar.

No matter how little you are, there are some things you are born knowing, the first of these being that mothers love their kids, unless they don’t, and, if they don’t, why don’t they? I tried to be like her and not think about things that made me feel bad, but it gnawed at me and I did think about it.

I tried even harder to be my daddy’s girl, to be perfect for him, because I needed him to love me, because even though his defense had been for me, it had scared me when he had asked my mother to leave. To a child, a parent is more powerful than they are, so if he could get rid of his wife, then why not his defective daughter? He had another daughter and only one wife, so it made a horrifying kind of sense to me.

I vowed never to disappoint him.

After a week of wandering around the apartment sniffing for her scent, and not knowing why, I caught it and knew he had let her come home. Somehow my mother weaseled her way back into the apartment and, from there, I guess she made it back into his good graces, for a while anyway … for long enough, because three months later at breakfast, Daddy told me the good news. Soon I would be one of three.

I smiled at him because I understood that he wanted me to smile, but inside I was afraid. One of three was even worse odds than one of two, and if there is anything a Kelleher fears it's diminishing returns.