After the scandal ripped our family apart, the authorities might have sent me to stay with any of several relatives. I will never know how they arrived at the choice of Aunt Greta. But choose her they did, and so my life has unfolded in its strange, uniquely loving way.
This is my story.
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I still remember how scared I felt that summer day in 1974, as I pulled my little blue Gremlin into Aunt Greta's narrow driveway. Her house was a tidy, small craftsman-style bungalow in a working-class area of the city. She had been using it as her place of business (she was a financial advisor), but increasing success had allowed her to open an office in a nearby upscale shopping district. The prim white house, with chinese-red shutters and neat, organized beds of bright flowers which framed the small porch, seemed stiffly formal and yet somehow welcoming. It was nothing at all like the sprawling mansion I had been raised in, but then, after all that happened I could hardly have remained in that house...or even in that town.
The squeaky little AM speaker, my calming friend during the long drive, went silent as I summoned up the courage to at least turn off the car. I sat immobile, tapping out a nervous beat with my fingers on the steering wheel. Even at eighteen, I was fully aware that my life was at a monumental crossroads. The caseworker had called it my chance at a 'fresh start.' My reverie was finally broken by the appearance of my Aunt Greta on her porch, waving cheerfully at me.
"It's too hot to sit there all day, sweetie," she yelled good-naturedly.
I smiled for the first time in who-knows-how-long, recalling how Aunt Greta's southern roots had her calling everyone 'sweetie,' 'honey,' 'sugar' and the like. As she walked gracefully toward me, smiling broadly, I again was reminded of the aura of timeless beauty which surrounded her. Somehow she always seemed to have a bit of the style and glamour of some leading lady from the forties or fifties.
As I got out of my car, we approached each other, arms outstretched. Related by marriage, not blood, we were about as different in appearance as two women could be. There she was, imposingly tall, her flaming red hair softly framing her pretty face and amazing green eyes. She looked cool and elegant in a simple teal print sundress, which flattered her athletic, tomboy build. She was in her early forties, and very much in her prime.
I, on the other hand, felt unsophisticated and hardly her feminine equal. No doubt some of this was due to our age difference, and some to my gnawing uncertainty about the future. Looking back now, I know that I was pretty in a waif-like way, with good features just beginning to fully bloom. I must admit that I was quite vain of my long, jet-black hair, and 'electric blue' eyes. Many an hour had been spent posing in front of my bedroom mirror, singing top-forty hits into my hairbrush 'microphone.' Just four-foot-ten (for years I "rounded up" my height to five feet!) and ninety-five pounds, I was, and remain, quite the 'elfin' type.
Aunt Greta seemed to be trying to hide a faint look of disapproval as she took in my cut-offs, plain white t-shirt, and scruffy adidas, but that vanished as we came together in a long, genuine hug. Tenderness had been largely absent from my life up until then, and I soaked it up wherever and whenever I could. My face barely came up to her chest, and as she held me, ever so briefly, I felt her warmth, and smelled a wispy trace of her trademark Cabochard perfume.
"Honey, I am so glad that you are here," Aunt Greta said, now holding me by the shoulders and beaming at me.
I could not help but smile back, as the first tendrils of fear began to leave me. Even though we had not seen each other for several years, the very real connection we had always felt...part sisterly, part mother-daughter, seemed to be re-establishing itself very quickly.
"I'm just happy to be...well...anywhere, Aunt Greta," I said, intending it to sound light-hearted. Instead, it came out frightened and pathetic.
"None of that, June," Aunt Greta said with surprising force. "The past is past. That needs to be your motto now. Your life starts here and now, and I won't tolerate your acting or thinking otherwise."
She gently lifted my downcast chin with her thumb and forefinger, and gazed directly into my eyes for several seconds. "I absolutely insist on that. Nothing was your fault, and the 'new you' begins now. Understood?"
