Around five in the morning, the barn manager came in to feed and water the animals. He proceeded to stick a pitchfork in the stack of hay. A surprised and fur-draped Margaret leaped up. The man was startled, terrified that he had roused the biggest raccoon ever. It took a round of coffee and shots of whiskey to calm both of them down.
The night in the barn gave Margaret half a dozen other ideas. The sounds of barnyard animals might make a good piece for Good Housekeeping. She wrote a song for Young People’s Records and a barn story for Golden. There were so many possibilities; everything was a discovery to a toddler, and almost every discovery could be turned into a book, poem, or song. Dot telegrammed, wrote, or called to share what Laurel and her new baby, Louis, said or did, and Margaret documented their lives as if they were the subject for one of Lucy’s textbooks.
Through Dot’s life, Margaret witnessed motherhood firsthand. Margaret watched Dot open her children to the world around them in the day and comfort them at bedtime. She loved how every day was different but reassuringly the same. Wake, tend to the cattle, ride horses, play with the dogs, bathe, and go to bed. Days were simple and slow. Margaret pondered how this might have been her own life if she had married George Armistead so many years ago. She wondered if she would have been happier with a husband and children. Her books were her legacy. They felt like her children. She had an enviable life, but the fear of what was next was never far from the front of her mind, especially after Michael had ordered her to find a new place to live.
*
As Christmas approached, a musical version of Margaret’s book The Little Brass Band was being performed by the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. To a sellout crowd of children and parents, Santa Claus used a huge thermometer to register how well they all sang along to “Silent Night.” Margaret sat in the audience in a new wool suit she bought especially for this occasion. She longed to share this moment with Michael, but it had been almost three months since they had last seen or spoken to each other. They did, though, continue to exchange letters.
It was clear from Michael’s last letter that she was pessimistic about her chances for recovery. She had received a blood transfusion that she hoped would send her illness into remission, but instead, it had made her feel even weaker. Another letter arrived asking Margaret to help settle her estate if she were to die. Michael still wanted to keep her distance from Margaret, but knew she would do as Michael asked, so she sent a letter of instructions for Margaret to follow if “a refrigerator suddenly fell on her head.” She didn’t trust Diana or anyone else to follow her requests. She specified how to claim her insurance policy’s proceeds and how her furniture and jewelry should be distributed. Anything not specifically covered was to be split between Margaret and Diana. She also warned that the cleaning out of her apartment shouldn’t be left to her daughter-in-law because she hated to throw things away.
Michael concluded that burying Robin in Indiana had been a hastily made decision. Mother and son should be buried next to each other as they originally planned, she said. Being away from him in death frightened her, so she asked that his body be exhumed and transferred to the family plot in the Bronx. She asked Margaret to make certain that request was followed.
Michael’s last stop on her Great Words with Great Music tour for the year was at Times Hall in New York. This venue was the smallest of Broadway’s theaters and held only around five hundred people. Even so, the ticket sales to the show were slow, so the house would be almost empty that night. Margaret bought a block of empty seats and distributed them to her friends, hoping to fill the house.
Backstage, she left a vase of camellias and a note in Michael’s dressing room. She also left her keys to the Connecticut house. In the note, she apologized for not yet having found a new place to live, and she promised to move from their apartments as soon as the weather warmed. Michael sent a response by messenger, thanking Margaret for the flowers and promising to call the next day. She reiterated that their relationship was stealing the little amount of energy she had and asked Margaret to refrain from contacting her. If she could do that, then perhaps they could have a relationship in the future.
Margaret succeeded in getting a larger audience into Times Hall, although the venue was far from full. When an emaciated Michael walked out in her white Grecian gown, a gasp from Diana could be heard in the audience. She had not seen her mother for almost four months and was shocked by her appearance. Two hands could easily fit around her waist. Her face was desperately thin, and her skin was sickly white. It was clear to everyone in that little theater that the woman onstage didn’t have long to live.
Margaret was not part of the audience that evening. Michael’s doctor had called Margaret on Michael’s behalf and explained that his patient was under a great deal of stress already and that being around Margaret compounded her anxiety. It was best for Michael for Margaret to stay away from the theater that night.
Nineteen
1950
I will light one cigarette
And when it is ended I will go
I will not smoke it fast
Or slow
Just in the way of everyday
I look at you and your
Familiar changing face
I see the moment ended
In this familiar room
From which I will go
With the grey curls of cigarette smoke
Rising slowly
To linger a little longer
On the air
“THE END”
White Freesias
Michael disappeared after her show, and Margaret had no idea where she was. When her mail piled up at the apartment, Margaret hounded Diana, trying to find out where Michael was. At first, Diana refused to tell Margaret. She didn’t want to cross her mother, who was in Switzerland receiving an experimental form of treatment for her leukemia. Doctors at the Hirslanden Clinic in Lausanne disagreed with Michael’s initial diagnosis of acute leukemia. Instead, they confirmed she had chronic leukemia, and if it went into remission, then her life could be extended by a few more years. They told her, however, that she had arrived not at the eleventh hour or the twelfth, but at half past twelve. She might have arrived too late for the treatments to work.