When We Were Sisters. Emilie Richards
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A is and the one who has to let them know it’s not all right when they don’t do homework or study. It’s always something, and I’m always right here taking care of it. Nobody else is around to deliver bad news.”
It was as close to an indictment of Kris as I’d ever made in Cecilia’s presence. I was immediately sorry. She didn’t need more ammunition against him.
“Maybe they aren’t angry at you.”
“Angry at the world?” I shrugged.
“Angry at their father for not being around while they’re growing up.”
I started to protest but didn’t get far. Because I know that Nik, in particular, needs more time with Kris. He’s twelve, tall and gangly and, according to his pediatrician, already into puberty. We started the “birds and the bees” discussion years ago in this garden, where the birds and the bees are actual residents, but the last thing my son wants now is to talk about sexual feelings or his changing body with his mother. And when can he talk to his father? Not on the fly during the rare times when Kris drops him at school on his way into work. Not late at night when Kris stumbles home so exhausted he can hardly remember his own name.
“It’s a problem,” I said. “Kris is a hot commodity. We don’t see a lot of him.”
She wisely didn’t follow up on that, at least not exactly. “Remember the night of the accident, when we chatted and I told you I needed to talk to you about something?”
I thought back and was glad I could remember. “You told me not to put you off.”
“Do you remember when I was in Australia on tour?”
“You got the flu and laryngitis and had to cancel the last week or so of concerts, right? Every time I called, Donny said you were fine but resting your voice.”
“I had a...” She angled her body toward me so she could see my face. “I had what they used to call a nervous breakdown. Now whatever they call it comes down to long paragraphs of psychobabble. But in essence, I had about a month when I couldn’t function. I was in a hospital for two of those weeks.”
“CeCe...” I covered her hand with mine. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What would you have done? Flown to Australia? Worried? Besides, I had to deal with my problems on my own. I needed time to cry and think. I did a lot of both.”
I didn’t know what to say. Cecilia is the strongest person I know, but even strong people can snap under the right pressure.
“A lot of it was exhaustion,” she said. “I chopped the old candle into a thousand pieces and burned every one of them at both ends. There was a doctor there I liked, a woman, Dr. Joan. She said that anybody who works as hard as I do is always avoiding something.”
“What were you avoiding?”
“You know better than anybody. Where I come from. Who I was. Who I am now. What I never had. The whole nine yards.”
“Most people would find even one of those topics intimidating.”
She laughed a little. “Devoted to making everything as momentous as possible. That’s me.”
Even without makeup, even wearing a man’s loose dress shirt, Cecilia is beautiful. She hasn’t always been. She grew slowly into her quirky, oversize features, but by the time she turned eighteen her carroty hair had darkened to a spectacular auburn and her figure had ripened into something astonishing. She’s lovely up close, but onstage? Onstage she’s a goddess.
“How are you now?” I asked, because to look at her, no one would know she’d ever experienced turmoil, much less recently.
“Determined.”
“You’re always determined. You’ve been determined since the day we met. You always have a plan.”
“This is a little different. Before I was determined to remake myself, to pretend I was somebody else. Now I’m determined to let the world know who I really am.”
I was puzzled. Mystique is a part of celebrity, and Cecilia already shares so much with her audiences. She’s loved for her energy and her ability to make her fans feel as if they know her. But, of course, they don’t know her at all.
She stood and went to the railing, turning to face me. “Almost two years ago a film producer named Mick Bollard contacted me. Do you know the name?”
“The same Mick Bollard who makes the award-winning documentaries?”
“I figured you would know.”
Once upon a time I was a professional photojournalist. But even if the path of my life veered away from the profession I once loved so well, I do keep up with my colleagues.
“I may not have seen everything, but I’ve seen most of his work,” I said.
“He told me he was doing a documentary on the foster care system, and he was looking for someone to narrate, someone famous to feature. He wanted a celebrity who had been a foster child, somebody to convey what the experience is like from a child’s point of view. He thought that would be a draw for the audience, but also a testament to how foster children can triumph.”
Cecilia has never flaunted her past, but neither has she hidden the basics, partly because it’s not easy to hide anything when hungry journalists are looking for a story. I’m always impressed by how well she feeds information to the press without whetting their appetites or lying outright.
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
“I said no.”
That didn’t surprise me, and it probably hadn’t surprised Mick Bollard. “Did he refuse to take no for an answer?”
“Actually he was understanding. That was the end of it until I got home from my Australian adventure. I started thinking about confronting my demons, and I got back in touch with Mick. We got together. I told him my entire history.”
I whistled softly. That alone had to be a first.
“Yes, I know,” she said. “He was fascinated. He went back to his hotel, and the next time I saw him he had moved well beyond what he’d first asked for. Now he wants to focus a large portion of the documentary on my childhood. Since you know his films, you know how that will work. We’ll go back to the places that were important in my personal story. I’ll be on camera, telling the audience what I remember. He’ll intersperse those segments with footage he already has, historical photographs and videos, interviews with social workers and the directors of innovative programs, and then he’ll shoot more footage, closer looks at the child welfare system I grew up with and where it is now.”
I could picture it. And having Cecilia sharing her own life on camera? What it had been like to be an actual foster child, maybe even what her life had been like before the state took over? Done well, this could win awards. And nobody would do it as well as Mick Bollard.
“Will this help or hurt your career?” It was the next logical question.
“I don’t know.”
“What does Donny say?”
“Donny says what matters is whether I think it will help or hurt me.”
I’ve always liked Cecilia’s manager, who isn’t quite the shark his colleagues are. I liked him more now. “And what do you think?”
“I think I need to do this.” She leaned forward. “And Robin, I really think you need to do it with me.”
Kris
I’m the younger of two children; my sister, Lucie, is six years older, and we rarely fought. Lucie doted on me and thought it was hilarious when I tried to argue. I was the crash-test dummy for the parenting skills she would