“There is no agony like having an untold story inside you.” — Zora Neale Hurston
Born in Newport, Rhode Island, I grew up in neighboring Middletown with parents who lived to be on the water. In fact, that’s the Newport Bridge gracing the banner on my website. While running his aviation repair business with my mother as his bookkeeper, my father restored a progression of wooden powerboats that graduated over the years from 22 to 36 feet. My brother George and I spent our summers on Narragansett Bay, which is where you’ll still find us on most summer weekends. Today, the boat is 36 feet and made of fiberglass, it has a shower, hot water, a microwave, and a T.V.—all things we never dreamed of having as kids—but the boat has gotten a bit more crowded than it used to be. Dad is still at the helm, but George and I each have a spouse, a daughter and a son along for the ride.
After graduating from Middletown High School in 1984, I attended the University of Rhode Island where I double majored in journalism and political science. I graduated in 1988 and went to work for a small community newspaper—the writing equivalent of boot camp. We worked like dogs for almost no money, but we had a lot of fun and learned so much about writing, editing and life. Four of my closest friends to this day are the other women I worked with in that cramped, crowded newsroom.
I lived in Rhode Island until I was 26 when I did something I had vowed to never do while growing up in a Navy town—I married a Navy guy and moved from the smallest state in the U.S. to Rota, Spain, where he was stationed. To say the change in my life was dramatic is putting it mildly! We had the time of our lives in Spain from 1992 to 1995, where I also earned a master’s degree in public administration through a program offered to the military by the University of Maryland. Our daughter Emily was born there three months before we returned to the states with her and the two dogs we had rescued from the pound—Consuela and Roscoe. (Consuela—my office mate and constant companion—is going strong at 16. Roscoe died at 14 in July 2006.)
Next stop Maryland, where Dan was stationed at the National Security Agency. I answered a tiny ad in The Washington Post, which landed me the job I still have today as the communications director for a nonprofit in Alexandria, Virginia. My company is devoted to the advancement of government accountability and supports the careers of people in the government financial management profession. I serve as editor-in-chief of a national trade magazine and oversee many other publications throughout the year. Our son Jake was born at Bethesda Naval Medical Center in October 1998. When Dan was transferred to the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy, an aircraft carrier stationed in Jacksonville, Florida, in November 1998, my company retained me as a full-time telecommuter.
Dan spent a big chunk of the three years he was stationed on the Kennedy at sea, which was a barrel of laughs for a mom with an infant, a toddler, two dogs, a full-time job and one of those fabulous palatial houses you used to be able to buy for a song in Florida. Needless to say, the Jacksonville years passed in a blur of activity and late nights at work! Dan retired from the Navy in December 2001, and the following summer we decided to move back to Rhode Island where we reside today in Portsmouth—the town right next door to Middletown. We sold the McMansion and paid twice as much for this old house in Rhode Island. Never go from brand new to old. Don’t do it. Five years later, I still haven’t recovered from the trauma.
When we lived in Jacksonville, the kids and I would drive down to Ft. Lauderdale to visit my parents who spent winters there. My dad and I would take long walks through the marinas where he would show me the boats we were going to buy someday. “You need to get busy writing that book,” he would say. My reply was always the same: “When exactly do you think I could fit that in? Between changing diapers and publishing magazines?” With a big grin, he would say, “Three to six a.m. is available.” A pipe dream. That’s all it was. But there was this character running around in my head. A man with thick dark hair, gray-blue eyes, an engaging grin, a quick wit . . . His name was Jack, and he was an architect. I’d find myself talking to him in the shower, when I was doing dishes or bathing babies. He’d crop up on days at the beach or on walks through the neighborhood. Someday, I said. Someday, I’ll write Jack’s story.
In 2002, I began to make some notes. I stumbled upon those notes recently and laughed so hard I cried. It was God-awful. Clearly, I wasn’t ready. Once in a while, though, I’d reopen that file, take another look, and make some more notes. I vividly remember outlining the story I had in mind to Dan when we were out to dinner one night. He loved it and encouraged me to pursue it. I knew I wanted something to happen to Jack’s wife, Clare, something that would incapacitate her but not kill her. I had great plans to put Jack through the wringer, but inevitably, life would interfere, and he’d get relegated to the back burner.
After we moved to Rhode Island in August 2002, I started to get more serious about the book but still wasn’t able to get very far. A year later, in November 2003, my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The next nine months were a roller coaster ride, during which I turned to the book more and more often, seeking an escape from the nightmare of my mother’s illness. By early August 2004, I had four solid chapters that my mother was the first to read. I made her cry, she said. She died on August 31, 2004.
Something that had lain dormant for years kicked into gear in the aftermath of my mother’s death. I asked myself—what are you waiting for? What meaning will it have to finally write that book if you wait until neither of your parents—the two people who always said you had it in you—aren’t around to read it? I firmly believe my mother is sending me these amazing characters who continue to pop up out of nowhere and lead me on one great adventure after another. How else can I possibly explain the incredible things that have happened in the three years since she died?
I finished Jack’s book, “Treading Water,” on May 18, 2005, and it’s my fondest hope to one day see it published. I’ve finished a few since then, including “Line of Scrimmage,” which will be published in the Fall 2008, but no accomplishment will ever mean more to me than writing “The End” on that first one. You sort of expect the world to at least have the decency to tip on its axis in tribute to your enormous accomplishment. But alas, kids still have homework, there’s work and laundry and bills and dinner to make. Life goes on, but nothing is ever the same again.
My dad has read them all.
—October 2007
The headline says it all! Red Sox Nation rejoices once again!
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"Line of Scrimmage," Sourcebooks, September 2008