Through a Door: 40 Writers on the Day Their Lives Changed by Rosie's Place

Through a Door A ly s i a A b b o t t Laura Zigman J u l i a A l va r e z Lee Woodruff M o l l y B ang Elizabeth Strout Elizabeth Berg Anita Shreve Amy Bloom Barbara Shapiro Jenna Blum Domenica Ruta Anita Diamant Luanne Rice Rac hel Dratc h Rishi Reddi Maria Flook J o d i P i c o u lt C o n n i e M a y F o w l e r J ay n e A n n e P h i l l i p s E l i z a b e t h G r av e r Susan Orlean Ann Hood M a r ya n n e O ’ H a r a Perri Klass Madeline Miller Ann Leary Sue Miller Helen Elaine Lee Claire Messud Jill Lepore Mameve Medwed Shirley Leung Kim McLarin Elinor Lipman Jill McCorkle Margot Livesey Suzanne Matson Lois Lowry Megan Mars hall

4 0 Wr iters on the D ay Their Lives Changed WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

A LICE HOF F M AN

Through a Door Forty Writers on t h e D ay T h e i r L i v e s Changed Edited by Alice Hoffman

Published in arrangement with

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Bostonâ&#x20AC;&#x192;

New York

2014

times. Everyone included in these pages has changed her own life by becoming a writer, and each has affected thousands with her work. That’s the other thing about opening a door: you may find yourself in really good company. On the other side you may find a voice that tells you what you need to hear, one that lets you know you are not alone, and that every ending also has a beginning. We reach a door by chance, by fate, by design. We are tentative or we rush in like fools, but either way we walk through to the other side. And once we do, there ’s no return. We know something we didn’t before; we love someone new, or say goodbye to someone, or pick up a book, or forgive someone. In truth there are many days that can change a person’s life, a series of events and moments that add up to a future, but this book captures the one remembered more than any other. This is the day that sticks with us and reminds us of who we are and who we might have been. It’s the day that made us who we are.

— A l i c e H o f f m a n

Through a Door

Through a Door Forty Writers on t h e D ay T h e i r L i v e s Changed Edited by Alice Hoffman

Published in arrangement with

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Bostonâ&#x20AC;&#x192;

New York

2014

Through a Door Forty Writers on t h e D ay T h e i r L i v e s Changed Edited by Alice Hoffman

Published in arrangement with

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Bostonâ&#x20AC;&#x192;

New York

2014

A ly s i a A b b o t t J u l i a A lva r e z M o l ly B a n g Elizabeth Berg Amy Bloom Jenna Blum Anita Diamant Rac hel Dratc h Maria Flook C o n n i e M ay F o w l e r E l i z a b e t h G r av e r Ann Hood Perri Klass Ann Leary Helen Elaine Lee Jill Lepore Shirley Leung Elinor Lipman Margot Livesey Lois Lowry

Megan Mars hall Suzanne Matson Jill McCorkle Kim McLarin Mameve Medwed Claire Messud Sue Miller Madeline Miller M a r ya n n e O ’ H a r a Susan Orlean J ay n e A n n e P h i l l i p s J o d i P i c o u lt Rishi Reddi Luanne Rice Domenica Ruta Barbara Shapiro Anita Shreve Elizabeth Strout Lee Woodruff Laura Zigman

Introduction 40 Women

I was a fanatical reader, but the library in our town was too far to walk to. I went to the closest one, a town away. They let me take out as many books as I wanted. Bless the librarians!

40 Words For the Anniversary of Rosieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Place

If you had 40 words to describe a moment when your life changed, what would you say?

t h a p p e n s s o o f t e n. Our lives appear to be moving in one direction, and then, quite suddenly, a door opens and everything changes. A possibility arises, we daydream, we take a chance, we allow ourselves to feel joy. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on the other side of the open door becomes the moment that defines us and changes us and charts a new path. It may be the birth of a child, the loss of a loved one, the power of learning to read, a good-bye to a friend, or falling head over heels in love when we least expect it. Suddenly we stop and make a turn. We vii

Introduction 40 Women

I was a fanatical reader, but the library in our town was too far to walk to. I went to the closest one, a town away. They let me take out as many books as I wanted. Bless the librarians!

40 Words For the Anniversary of Rosieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Place

If you had 40 words to describe a moment when your life changed, what would you say?

imagine something completely different for ourselves. Something we never expected. Do we have one fate and is that fate written? Or do we have many possible fates and potential lives depending on our choices and experiences? Someone offers us a book to read, a bed to sleep in, a hand to hold. A door can open that easily. We are the ones who must have the courage to walk through it — whether by choice or by necessity or because of a loss. We take a singular experience that lasts a moment and keep it as a lesson that will be with us for the rest of our lives. Kip Tiernan, the founder of Rosie ’s Place, made that choice when she left her corporate life and the path that was expected of her and walked through the door that would lead her to found the first shelter for women in the United States. She decided that she would spend her life helping others. In opening that one door, she opened a thousand other doors for women whose lives would never be the same once they entered Rosie ’s Place, a place to find shelter, and work, and the tools to start a new life. My own door was not so far from this. It opened when I walked inside the Malverne Public Library on Long Island and was given a library card even though I

lived in another town. Reading saved me time and time again. I lived in a troubled town in an uncertain time, and people around me were faltering. But when I walked into the library, that one act opened a door into worlds I would have otherwise known nothing about. Reading allowed me to know I had options. When I did not drop out of school or use drugs, when I left home to avoid the undertow that caused many of my friends to drown, it was because of the books I found in the library, and because of the stories I had begun to write. One door opens, and a thousand more appear on the other side. I would not be the person I am or have the life I have led if I had not walked into that library. Every book I’ve written is because of that one choice. Every part of my life has been affected by that moment. It was the day my life changed, when I first saw beyond the confines of my hometown and the low expectations I had for myself. I could do something more. I could write. The forty writers in this book have generously shared the day their lives changed. These wonderful moments could not be more different: some are tragic, some are joyful, some break your heart, some make you laugh, but all are bound together by these writers’ talent and their resolve to go on, despite difficulties and hard

viii

— A l i c e H o f f m a n

Through a Door

— A l i c e H o f f m a n

Through a Door

An October morning, twelve years ago. I stood at the door of a knitting store wondering if a Home Ec failure like me could learn to knit my way through grief and back to hope. K2P2. Ah! Joy! Ah! Life!

â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x2030; A n n H o o d

I am fifteen and my mother puts me on a plane to a place I’ve never been to live among people I do not know. “No,” I beg. “It’s for your own good,” she orders. Mostly she was right. Mostly.

— K i m M c L a r i n

When I was a single mother working in day care, I bought a tiny house, borrowing the down payment ($8,000 then!). A friend cosigned the mortgage and I rented out rooms to pay everyone back, but it was mine — my home, my son’s home — and it changed everything.

— S u e M i l l e r

— K i m M c L a r i n

— S u e M i l l e r

As the car careened wildly through Hurricane Bob, all I could think was: My baby is coming too early. That’s how life works: sometimes the unexpected becomes reality. I wasn’t ready for my son, but he was ready for me.

— J o d i P i c o u l t

My son has cancer. He wears a survivor’s mask to any public place. Yesterday, a hospital security guard asked me, “Are you lost?” I said, “I’m with him.” From behind his mask, Harry asked him, “Can’t you see the resemblance?”

— M a r i a F l o o k

— J o d i P i c o u l t

— M a r i a F l o o k

When I was nineteen, I met a young man my age who was dying. I was not able to help him, but he helped me: he showed me the fragility of life, and made me want to celebrate it, always.

— E l i z a b e t h B e r g

August 6, 1960: the bittersweet day my family arrived in New York City: bitter, because we had left our homeland; sweet, because we had escaped the dictatorship; bittersweet, in balance, when I learned this English and could tell the story.

— J u l i a A l v a r e z

When I was nineteen, I met a young man my age who was dying. I was not able to help him, but he helped me: he showed me the fragility of life, and made me want to celebrate it, always.

— E l i z a b e t h B e r g

— J u l i a A l v a r e z

First I had to see the truth and call it by name. I was scared, but I opened the door and walked through. It’s not that I haven’t looked back: I have, but over my shoulder as I’ve kept on moving.

— L u a n n e R i c e

My life changed the day my first child, a girl, was born. I was about to turn twenty-one. Those two blue eyes looked up at me and I realized that my heart would never again be entirely my own.

— L o i s L o w r y

— L u a n n e R i c e

My life changed the day my first child, a girl, was born. I was about to turn twenty-one. Those two blue eyes looked up at me and I realized that my heart would never again be entirely my own.

— L o i s L o w r y

I moved from a small apartment in Brooklyn over the bridge to Manhattan. I was alone. I was scared. I was fifty. It was not how I had thought my life would be. Everything was different after that.

— E l i z a b e t h S t r o u t

We were very young. He had cats. I had a dog. We lived in the same apartment building, each alone, on the same floor, each too shy to say hello. We met when, in the end, my animal chased his.

— J i l l L e p o r e

I moved from a small apartment in Brooklyn over the bridge to Manhattan. I was alone. I was scared. I was fifty. It was not how I had thought my life would be. Everything was different after that.

— E l i z a b e t h S t r o u t

We were very young. He had cats. I had a dog. We lived in the same apartment building, each alone, on the same floor, each too shy to say hello. We met when, in the end, my animal chased his.

— J i l l L e p o r e

Two bleeding-heart liberals meet on a blind date fifteen years after they’ve attended the same nursery school. They hear Barry Goldwater, the only entertainment in Bangor, Maine, that night. Married for nearly half a century, they have never voted Republican.

— M a m e v e M e d w e d

The letters of the alphabet were displayed above the blackboard in my first-grade class. My life changed the day I saw how those lines and squiggles made Jane run and Spot bark, and the world became an open book.

— A n i t a D i a m a n t

— M a m e v e M e d w e d

— A n i t a D i a m a n t

A dear friend was near the end of a long battle with breast cancer and I was overwhelmed by my upcoming move. She came armed with mop and broom and hours to give. She said: Don’t keep anything you can live without.

— J i l l M c C o r k l e

Widowed, I joined Match.com. Rather embarrassing, believe me. One day I clicked on a profile. Last book he’d read? My latest. I’m stunned. We dated platonically (his choice) for months. Finally, a declaration! I needed no convincing. Nomance became romance.

— E l i n o r L i p m a n

— J i l l M c C o r k l e

— E l i n o r L i p m a n

Cambridge, 1974: A college dropout, I worked in an office with five other secretaries, all women longing for . . . something more, we didn’t know what. The power and frustration we felt together made us, one by one, quit to find out.

— M e g a n M a r s h a l l

When I began to comprehend that the bomb in Iraq had injured not just my husband, but our entire family, a powerful spirit of resilience began to awaken in me. Human beings are built to survive incredible things.

— L e e W o o d r u f f

— M e g a n M a r s h a l l

— L e e W o o d r u f f

At four I was trusted to field my mother’s calls. My nonna’s voice laughing: “Put my daughter on the phone, please.” My heart leapt. My mother had a mother? My grandmother had a daughter? An infinity exploded between my ear and the telephone that day.

Back to Foulke. Red Sox fans have longed to hear it: “The Boston Red Sox are World Champions!” History is prologue; victory is sweet.

— P e r r i K l a s s

— D o m e n i c a R u t a

Back to Foulke. Red Sox fans have longed to hear it: “The Boston Red Sox are World Champions!” History is prologue; victory is sweet.

— P e r r i K l a s s

— D o m e n i c a R u t a

On a wintery day, on a windswept island, I had lunch with S — , a woman I scarcely knew. I was so nervous my hand trembled as I ate and we talked. Our deep friendship has lasted more than thirty years.

— M a r g o t L i v e s e y

My first day of teaching. I remember looking out at my students and realizing what a profound responsibility they were entrusting me with — and that I’d better be worthy of it. Fifteen years later, they still fill me with awe.

— M a d e l i n e M i l l e r

At the last minute Robin asks me to stay. I see the head crowning. Swirls of shiny black hair, then abruptly a full child, slightly blue, quickly rosy, a short cry, curious eyes. My daughter’s daughter in my arms. Emma.

— B a r b a r a S h a p i r o

When I met my agent, Stéphanie Abou, she said, “I’m offering you a contract but first I want to hug you.” Her belief in my books made it possible for them to get out into the world. I’m forever grateful!

— J e n n a B l u m

— B a r b a r a S h a p i r o

— J e n n a B l u m

Before my daughter was born, I believed that if my father died, I would die. I was thirty-three, old enough to know such a thing could not be true. But it wasn’t until I saw her tiny face that I knew I would live to be her mother.

— A n i t a S h r e v e

“There it is,” said the midwife, pointing to the ultrasound monitor. “The heartbeat, it’s still there.” And I saw it, what a lightshow, a blinking SOS from a faint little soul. I am here. I am here. I am here.

— A n n L e a r y

— A n i t a S h r e v e

— A n n L e a r y

In the space of a few years, I sat on a bed, crying, holding hands with my dying mentor, then my dying mother, then my dying father. I miss them all every day and every day I am glad I had that chance.

— A m y B l o o m

Forty days nil by mouth, not compos mentis, my father was drowning in pneumonia. We refused a third intubation; they gave him ninety minutes to live. Somehow — drugs? the divine? — he rallied, breathed, returned. Two more beautiful years: Grace.

— C l a i r e M e s s u d

— A m y B l o o m

— C l a i r e M e s s u d

On a cold January afternoon, while watching my son eat a gyro with his little Peruvian hat on, my mother called. When she said pancreas and mass I knew I’d just gotten the call I’d spent my whole life dreading.

— L a u r a Z i g m a n

December 27th, 1984, after two days of labor that began Christmas night, my doctor said, “Here he is! Reach down and catch him!” I looked into my son’s eyes and began the ultimate, blessed surrender.

— J a y n e A n n e P h i l l i p s

— L a u r a Z i g m a n

— J a y n e A n n e P h i l l i p s

It is 1985, she is two years old, and finally diagnosed. Life splits apart, becomes Before / and / After, yet — who knew that /After would turn out to be such a gift? A daily, renewable reminder. This day, this moment — this.

— M a r y a n n e O ’ H a r a

I wrote a sentence and it seemed to sing. I wrote another. Someone read it and heard it sing, too. “You know, I think I could really get hooked on this,” I thought to myself. And now I can’t stop!

— S u s a n O r l e a n

— M a r y a n n e O ’ H a r a

— S u s a n O r l e a n

The day of my father’s funeral, I took the stage and read aloud. Though barely twenty-two, I was able to command the room with only my voice. It was then I knew, not only could I do this, I loved doing this.

— A l y s i a A b b o t t

At eighteen, I told my dying mother, “I love you.” She responded, “You go to hell.” Now, three decades later, I insist on remembering her parting words differently. I am sad. I don’t want to go. I love you, too.

— C o n n i e M a y F o w l e r

— A l y s i a A b b o t t

— C o n n i e M a y F o w l e r

Unforgotten days: my Cousin’s death, my Daughter’s birth, the Love Story’s failure — when a door closed, a window opened. The next morning, I was different but the same. With a bit more Knowing, perhaps some Hope. Even those are precious.

— R i s h i R e d d i

I did not know, when I first boarded the long yellow school bus to go from my black Detroit neighborhood toward the academic opportunities of wealthy, white, suburban territory, that I would be ever in-between, and belong to neither place.

— H e l e n E l a i n e L e e

— R i s h i R e d d i

— H e l e n E l a i n e L e e

One night when I was fourteen, my father woke up and began losing himself, pacing the halls and covering the windows. It was nothing anyone could fix. His memories gradually floated loose, I caught them, and that became my work.

— S u z a n n e M a t s o n

I must have been five or so when I learned to read, the black marks on the page aligning first into sound, then into sense, and then (in my memory, it happened suddenly, a seismic shift) I could go anywhere, borne by words.

— E l i z a b e t h G r a v e r

— S u z a n n e M a t s o n

— E l i z a b e t h G r a v e r

I couldn’t walk without pain. A healer massaged my neck and shoulders, pressed down, and asked me to slowly turn my head. Crunching noises filled my neck, and suddenly the pain was gone. Now I become grounded by massaging others.

— M o l l y B a n g

Nine months, twenty-four hours of labor, three hours of pushing. The moment I became a mother could not come soon enough. That first touch of your firstborn, warm and wet, washing over you like Hawaiian surf.

— S h i r l e y L e u n g

— M o l l y B a n g

— S h i r l e y L e u n g

Forty-three years old and I had let go of the idea of motherhood. And now — was this some sort of early menopause? Friend says “Maybe you’re pregnant!” I laugh. Then: Two lines means . . . preg-WHAT!? Mind blown, world rocked, life made.

— R a c h e l D r a t c h

Afterword In 1974, Kip Tiernan saw women disguising themselves as men in order to get into a local soup kitchen for a meal. After traveling around the country and finding no shelter for women anywhere in the United States, Kip returned to Boston and founded Rosie’s Place in an abandoned grocery store in the South End. Kip created a unique community, where the clients are welcomed as guests, and no government money is accepted. Kip’s spirit of independence and unconditional love continues to this day. Today, Rosie’s Place opens its doors to more than 12,000 women each year, welcoming them to an essential array of survival services as well as programs that help prepare them for their next step. At Rosie’s Place, our mission is to provide not only somewhere to go, but a 51

community to live among. We watch out not only for a woman’s physical and mental health, but for her emotional and spiritual well-being, too. We coordinate doctors’ appointments — and take women to museums and concerts. We advocate with landlords to prevent homelessness — and cook amazing holiday meals for women who would otherwise be alone. We mediate disputes and provide a shoulder to cry on, give advice, and cheer on steps toward independence. Every day we learn that by creating community, we create the chance for transformation. We acknowledge that coming to Rosie’s Place is for most of our guests an admission of defeat. For a new guest, that first day in our community is probably one of her worst days. She arrives considering herself a collection of problems, of faults — homeless, hungry, jobless, addicted, ill. Right from the start, we work to turn that attitude around, to hold in our hearts the image of a strong and dignified woman who can make decisions that help her go where she wants to go. While we provide resources and information, we also provide the message that every woman is a resourceful individual, whose past and present need not be her limits. We strive to maintain that image regardless of the setbacks our guests face along the way.

We know that second chances have to be a part of life. Sometimes lots of second chances. Because they live with so little, there’s no room for error in our guests’ lives. Budgets are precarious, as are jobs and apartments. One misstep can lead to a fall from grace that is spectacular not only in its speed but in its magnitude. At Rosie’s Place, we understand that the solutions for our guests are found over the long term, and are more often arrived at piecemeal than all at once. We stand by our guests for as long as they need us. Increasingly, we find ourselves the last resort for women. Our funds to assist guests are exhausted as soon as they become available. Our food pantry reaches capacity every time we are open. Our emergency shelter is always full. As other charities and government programs contract, Rosie ’s Place remains a constant for poor and homeless women. And as poor women find themselves harder pressed to get by, our long-time guests are joined by women who visit Rosie’s Place for the first time. We work to solve each guest’s problems and to figure out a way to keep her optimistic and hopeful. Just as our guests’ lives begin to change as they walk through our doors, so did Kip’s life make a sudden transformation. Kip described her experience of change in an interview published in the Boston Globe Magazine on May

29, 1988: “As she listened to Daniel Berrigan talk about draft raids and the Farm Workers talk about the lettuce boycott . . . , she heard a voice inside her say, ‘I have just passed through a door, and there is no going back.’ ” By passing through that door, Kip created a unique community that relies upon private donors, willing volunteers, and a passion for social justice. Thousands of poor and homeless women have found sustenance and solace thanks to her creation. As Alice Hoffman and the other contributors to this volume beautifully illustrate, we all remember that day when our lives took a turn toward a direction previously unseen. For me it was the day when I watched an EMT driver throw away a dirty blanket clutched by a homeless woman as he coaxed her into the back of the ambulance, and she and I both cried. Rosie ’s Place is blessed that so many generous writers shared their own day of change with us in this publication, and that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt unstintingly shared its expertise, resources, and support to bring it to life. As an organization which does not accept public funding of any sort, Rosie ’s Place depends upon the kindness of private donors to carry on our work. This publication is no exception, and it wouldn’t have been made possible without the support

of some very dedicated and talented friends. We are especially grateful to Alice Hoffman, Mih-Ho Cha, Gary Gentel, Bruce Nichols, and Becky Saikia-Wilson for their tremendous efforts on our behalf. Howard Zinn, the peace activist, writer, and teacher, said, “The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” We invite you to join us in that journey toward that infinite succession of presents — and the doors we will walk through to get there.

With faith, Sue Marsh Interested in learning more about Rosie’s Place — either to give help or to find it? Visit rosiesplace.org.