Rosalinda's Eyes Ch. 03

Chapter 3

These divergent dichotomies of ours catch up with us over time.

I was my father's son once upon a time, before I was on my own -- before I was part of a new binary system. Another woman, Brenda, defined my life for the next thirty years, our time longer but less complex than the time I spent under my father's roof. Brenda was all about love, the simplest, most powerful time there is, while my father was about unquestioned support, about passing on what he'd learned about what makes for a good life.

Then hate came into my life. Slowly at first, but with gathering momentum. It's hard to look back at those years because there are so few memories worth holding onto, looking back at. Hate blinds so completely not even memory survives.

Hate is a little like putting on a suit of shining armor. It's hard, beyond rigid, a polished shell covering all our soft, vulnerable parts. Difficult to move around in too, the limited range of motion, I guess, accounts for that. You lower a visor when you suit-up, see the world ahead through tiny slits and there's no such thing as peripheral vision anymore. There's just the one way ahead, and even the parts of the story you see aren't really representative of the greater landscape anymore. Hate blinds you, makes you rigid, and about all you can do is charge off and hope it doesn't hurt too much when you run into the walls of your own ignorance.

I put that armor on one day and intuitively knew it wasn't a good fit, and I tried to cast it aside, turn away from all it wanted from me. Still, there came a time when I saw that cool metal still sitting there, cast aside yet still oh so shiny and strong looking, and I was tempted, sorely tempted to put it on again. And that's when I fell into Rosalinda's eyes. That's when she cleaned my clock and set me straight, when I discovered how little I knew about life in the 'hood, even my own little corner of our world.

I think she was getting me ready for the last act of my life, an as yet unfinished comedy waiting for a little resolution. And I say this advisedly: when I looked back at my life with Brenda, from the vantage point of my time with Rosalinda, I understood I'd gone through three decades of marriage absent one vital thing.

Passion.

I'd loved that woman to within an inch of our lives, yet in all that time I'd never felt the sort of passion Rosalinda brought into my life one afternoon. Yet I lay with her after and felt tugged between two stars, a planet caught in a tight binary system. Brenda's had been a slow, steady warmth, probably more conducive to life but never too much so; Rosalinda's was a spontaneous combustion, a cool blue star one minute, then impossible, blinding radiance the next. One had a sensible gravity well, pulling gently, holding me close, while the other went from zero-G to crushing in a flash -- and once Rosalinda's gravity took hold it was impossible to break free.

And her love, once given, was never in doubt. One hour with Bettina convinced me of that. One hour hearing the real story behind that love left me in awe. Left me reeling in wonder. So much in love I had no hope of recovering.

But you knew that already, didn't you?

+++++

Her mother fled Spain in the 30s, when leftist 'revolutionaries' -- though legally in power -- were challenged by rightist 'counter-revolutionaries' -- supported by, among others, Hitler and Mussolini, as well as large corporations. It was, in some respects, a civil war between 'the people' and large corporate interests, global interests that had vast sums of money set aside to raise new armies wherever their control was at risk. The war rapidly became a proxy war, with Hitler using the conflict to 'blood' the Wehrmacht, to get them 'battle-tested' in his warm up to the main event, and the Luftwaffe conducted the first large scale aerial bombardments in Europe's history. The leftists were, of course, supported by the Soviet Union, but Mexico also played a role in the conflict.

When, in 1939, it appeared the leftists were going down in defeat, those with money fled to the Americas. Some to the United States of America, many more to the United States of Mexico -- but often by way of New York City, and Rosalinda's mother was in this latter group. Nineteen years old and by all accounts as glamorous as any movie star, Bettina Louise arrived in New York City one December morning sporting a high fever and severe pain in her gut, lower right quadrant. Appendicitis, in other words, and she was taken to Columbia Presbyterian where a brilliant young surgical resident operated. In the course of her post-operative care, Bettina Louise found out she was diabetic and she fell in love with the young surgeon, a man named Paul Latimer, and of equal importance, he fell in love with her too.

Bettina Louise went on to Mexico City, but the two corresponded, and their love only deepened. Her father was against all this, of course, and did not want his daughter getting mixed up with some unknown Yankee -- from Oklahoma, no less -- but when the surgeon finished his residency he took the train to Mexico City and that was the end of that. Paul had no trouble finding work, of course, but with his new family's 'connections' he soon found himself working for the Ministry of Health -- and knee deep in Mexican politics.

And of course, as his family's political connections were 'leftist,' they still were invited to lavish political dinners, many at the Soviet embassy in Mexico City. And, of course, as rightist, corporatist powers emerged after the war, they took power in Mexico, and they began to purge the government of anyone even remotely leftist, or 'communist.' Fearing for their lives, again, Bettina Louise's family fled to California, to Los Angeles, and Paul, of course, went to. He had no trouble finding work in California because he was a US trained and licensed physician, and his political work was as yet unknown.

Of course, all that was before the McCarthyite purges hit the United States, and within a year Latimer was unmasked as a high government official with deep ties to the Soviet Union. He was, in due course stripped of his medical license and eventually jailed for lying on his immigration forms, and he died in federal prison under circumstances that remained unclear for decades, having never seen the baby girl born to him and Bettina Louise in 1952.

After the McCarthyite 'Red Scares' subsided in the mid-50s, Bettina Louise was offered a part in a movie, and because her family needed the money she took the role. Over the next ten years she worked in several westerns, many with big stars like John Wayne and Gregory Peck, but she was never considered anything like a leading lady. No, she played the Mexican barmaid or the downtrodden shopkeeper's wife, a decorative 'extra' with rarely a speaking part, but because of good looks she was always in demand and she always made good money, enough to buy a house near Elysian Park, enough to raise her daughter and take care of her ailing parents. After her father passed she took care of her mother, took work in an office at Paramount Studios, all while she raised her little Rosalinda. Because she was not simply attractive, she made better than good money in the back offices, for more than a few years, too.

Bettina Louise's mother passed and then it was just the two of them, and Rosalinda took an interest in nursing after her grandmother's death, though in truth medicine was really what interested her. Bettina Louise had taken her family name, Rodriguez, after her husband's supposed disgrace, and in Los Angeles she was regarded as one of 'them,' a Mexican, and therefore some kind of Third Class citizen. Yet she wasn't so surprised when most of the locals she talked to didn't know the difference between Spain and Mexico, or that the State of New Mexico was in America, not Mexico, but she accepted what was and moved on. She tried to keep away from people who, in their ignorance, perhaps, found it so easy to judge, too easy to look away.

In time Bettina retired. She settled in for the duration in her little house by the park, saw Rosalinda graduate from nursing school and begin working at County SC. Her diabetes, always a problem, soon became a bigger issue and she lost a leg two years later, and that marked the beginning of her end. She lived long enough to see Rosalinda fall in love with a physician then was soon gone too.

I listened to Bettina's retelling of her family's origins in fascinated awe. So easy to see where her passionate intensity came from, her drive to excel. And me? I'd always considered her Mexican, when in truth there was nothing at all 'Mexican' about her, or her mother. They were Spanish-American, in truth as European as I, yet how comfortably had I slapped one set of labels on them -- not to mention entire sets of expectations -- because of a name. A name I knew nothing about. Because my expectations were so hollow, as hollow as my understanding. But hell, I guess you knew that already.

+++++

School had just let out for the summer when our third Saturday of flying came 'round, and the girls were full of joy, full of all the anticipation that comes with graduating from high school. What came next had already been decided, of course. They were both starting at UCLA in August, so we had some serious flying to do over the next two months.

And I should say I had some serious flying to do too. Stan had me booked up several hours a day, five days a week, usually working with pilots trying for their instrument or multi-engine ratings, and before I knew what was happening to me I was working longer and harder than I ever had before. I mention this as I'd never planned for something like this...this new life had, quite by accident, found me -- yet I wasn't sure I wanted my life to be so suddenly all-consuming and hectic.

But there were Rosalinda's eyes waiting for me when I got home, and that made all the difference.

I see her now standing in the kitchen, chopping and stirring, explosions of life in the air, twirling between the counter and the stove -- turning the mundane into something like wild magic. She was a magician. Nothing less than that. She was one of those special souls who made life worth living.

Yet Bettina was now, more than anyone else in my life, the anchor that held me fast to the here and now, and I know that must sound distorted and strange. Where was Terry, you ask, my daughter? In all this had she simply disappeared?"

Well yes, if you must know, she had.

But that was about to change, too.

+++++

She called one day that June, and she was, like women in my life tend to when they call, in tears. She'd been counting on getting a position at Sloan-Kettering, but that hadn't happened. She was devastated and needed some 'Dad time' -- as she called it -- but I was no longer just out the Long Island Expressway. I was about as far away now as I could possibly be, and she was in a cab headed to LaGuardia, would be at LAX in six hours...

This, coming at five in the afternoon. With a full day of flying lined up tomorrow, starting at 0800.

I turned to Rosalinda, then elbows deep in pyrex bowls full of marinading something, and told her the deal.

"Tonight? She is coming tonight?"

"Yup."

"Excellent! I have time to make a paella!"

Dear God: When you have a minute to spare, would you please drop me a note, give me some sort of clue what it is with women and food? Yours truly, Clueless.

She, of course, called Becky, and then the three of them got to work. Kitchen cleaned and ready for inspection? Check! Maddie's bedroom, ready for business? Check! Bathroom? Ditto! In two hours the house was an immaculate conception ready for hard duty, then the girls hit the cupboards and got to the real work at hand.

Me? Get out of their way, and stay away.

So I drove across town to LAX, got there about a half hour too early, sat around thinking about Rosalinda and Bettina -- and Terry. What would happen when they mixed? Two unstable compounds joining under unknown pressures and temperatures...what would emerge? And would anything survive the reaction? For some reason I thought of stars colliding, and wondered what happens then.

She looked like she'd just been discovered in a concentration camp and set free. Emaciated. Gaunt eyed and scarecrow thin. She didn't look like a cancer researcher -- she looked like a cancer patient...with about a week to live. I wanted to cry, then I thought about Rosalinda standing in that kitchen -- and I laughed.

"Dad? What is it?"

"Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about unstable chemical reactions..."

She looked at me like, well, I think you know, don't you?

And I filled her in on my life since Long Island while we got on the 405, then the 10. About working on the house, a house she might have seen once in the past twenty some-odd years, and about flying with Becky and Bettina. And then -- about Rosalinda.

"Dad? You're seeing someone?" She sounded hurt, disbelieving.

"It just sort of happened."

"A Mexican?"

"Nope. Spanish. Her father was from Oklahoma, a physician, trained at Columbia."

"Oh."

"They're waiting up, cooking some sort of blowout dinner."

"Really? Oklahoma food?"

I grinned. "I have no idea, kitten."

She used to love it when I called her that. Now she seemed distracted and angry.

"So, what happened in New York?"

"They didn't want me, that's all."

"Any idea why?" If she'd been acting like this, I knew the reason, but Terry? Not my little Terry...

"I've been having a hard time, Dad."

"Hard? Why?"

"Since Mom died. Since you left me."

A-ha. Thirty one years old and having a case of full-blown separation anxiety? Someone, somewhere along the line had screwed the pooch -- and that someone had to be me, didn't it? Yet in a flash I'm seeing PJ in my mind's eye, hanging out there in the air apparent. Curled up on her duffel bag in San Fran, talking at breakfast about some drugged out cock dangling from her mouth. What goes around comes around, I think I might have said while trying not to choke on the irony.

"Are you angry at me for leaving?"

She nodded her head. "Yeah, but I understand. You have your life to lead, and I get that."

"And that means there's no room in my life for you? Is that what this feels like?"

"Yeah. I know I've been busy, inaccessible, but everything happened so fast and I turned around and you were gone..." And she was crying, real off to the races crocodile tears. Instinctually I thought about heading over to Tommy's, but no. Time for a new tradition, I thought.

A game had just finished at Dodger Stadium and traffic was a little tense, but we were swimming against that tide, the going not too bad, and we pulled into the driveway a little before midnight.

Of course the entire neighborhood was ensnared in the scents coming out of my, well, Rosalinda's kitchen, and even Terry's remarks were hopeful, but stepping into the house was like stepping into another world. Lighting and furniture: perfect. Pitcher of sangria on the table, fresh citrus floating on top. Candles everywhere, the dining room table almost ablaze with them. It was almost five in the morning for Terry, yet she came alive in all the sudden attention.

Rosalinda had made a paella with scallops and huge prawns, and just to confound things a bowl of her guacamole adorned the middle of the table, and while I took Terry's bag back to Maddie's room she settled in, with the girls passing snacks and wine while Terry looked around in a daze.

Unable to drink anything but water these days, I sat back in a fat chair in the living room and watched the night unfold like some kind of lorded paterfamilias, and within an hour it was apparent that Bettina and Terry had suddenly become something like, well, if not sisters then really good friends.

And that was the last thing I remembered.

I woke up at six, feet up on an ottoman, a blanket tucked neatly under my chin.

The house, of course, spotless.

I showered and was gone before Terry woke, and when I came back a little before noon she was still unconscious. Rosalinda came in after three and Terry was still snoring away, but she filled me in on the parts I missed.

Terry put down most of the sangria in short order, after I conked out, then put down a six-pack of beer and was rummaging around for the hard stuff when Rosalinda stepped in and put the brakes on. The three girls talked until four or so, then Terry started crying and Rosalinda sent the girls away.

They talked some more after that, until Terry began running out of steam, then she helped my little girl to bed. Interesting conversation, that was.

Because Rosalinda now knew the lay of the land. The contours of my existence a priori, I think you could say. She finally knew the other Brenda, our backstory, and Terry's and Michael's, too. She learned what it was like to grow up with an airline pilot as father, all the nights away, the big events missed. What my son was like. Why I couldn't talk about him. Even what my parents were like, too. All the million things I'd turned my back on and walked away from.

Rosalinda was always a good listener, an empath full of compassion -- a rare combination -- and by the time the evening was done she knew what was bugging Terry, and what she needed.

"And that is?"

"A job, here in LA. Someplace where you'll be about ten minutes when she needs you. Which will be often," Rosalinda added. Then she scowled a little -- always a bad thing -- and she looked at me: "You should not have left her so suddenly."

"I know, but I..."

"See her, and you see your wife."

"Yes, but I..."

"Had to get away from the memories."

"I know, but I..."

"Have yet to grow up, face the responsibilities of being a father. You had your job, but now you are free of that. Well, the bill has come, and it is past due now."

"So, what do I..."

"I have an interview set up with Oncology on Monday morning. Now the job is to get some food down her, pack a few pounds on her between now and then."

Terry, for her part, took the position at County SC. I helped her put some money down on a downtown loft, too. About ten minutes away, on an average day, I think.

Need I say more?

+++++

That summer was loaded with divergent dichotomies, more than a little cognitive dissonance, but it passed by so fast.

Terry, moving cross country for the first time. Helping her settle in, learn the ropes in this strange city. I took her to Tommy's of course, then had to explain, for the next several hours, why her stomach was rumbling like a volcano. And that it was not necessary to apologize, just roll down your window, please.

PJ. Where do I begin? When will it ever end? She and Judd, on the ropes within weeks. Then we found out she had stopped taking her meds and a whole new struggle began. Got her back on medication and she evened out again, but that's when we learned a hard truth. Many psych patients don't like their meds. They devise all kinds of weird ways to stop taking them and not talk about it -- until the cake blows up in the oven. Judd loved her, I mean the real deal, and he wasn't about to give up the fight, but it went deeper than that.

She came home on her bad days, went into the parent's old bedroom and sometimes she'd just sit there, looking at the corner where Dad's bed used to be. On those days I'd load her up in the Porsche and we'd drive out Sunset and go sit on the rocks above the surf, listen to the seagulls before heading in on Beverly, stopping off at Tommy's for a dose of memory, with chili and cheese on top.

Maybe the biggest deal that summer came along in the middle of August, on a cool Saturday morning at the airport in Van Nuys. The girls took turns pre-flighting my Cessna, then, after our obligatory coin-toss, Becky saddled up and taxied out to the active. I stood there with Judd and PJ, Judd's ex, too, a cute thing named Cindy, and of course Rosalinda and Bettina were there too, and we watched Becky make her run down the runway, lift up and fly a long, extended base, then settle in for a gracious landing. She taxied back to us and shut her down, and after she'd grasped the significance of the moment she bolted out the door and ran -- right into my arms.