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173 Chapter Twenty-Two New Beginnings The horror show of Rick faded into a blank screen. Marvin hired an attorney, and Stephanie and I went to court to have the Las Vegas marriage annulled. We were lucky: Rick did not contest and did not appear in court. Our house was on the market again and I kept busy making it presentable for the many “Open Houses” we had. I can’t count the many gladioli I bought for the downstairs rooms, and the many cinnamon muffins we wound up eating after the potential buyers left. I fell for the real estate agent’s advice to brew fresh coffee and bake muffins to make the house smell homey. In retrospect that was silly—and shame on me for not recognizing it. Most of the would-be-buyers were in the movie business, or they were so well-off they were not looking for “Little House on the Prairie” hominess. The realtor liked coffee and cinnamon muffins, and I willingly went along with the advice because the “coziness” appealed to me, and Stephanie and I too liked to munch on the muffins. The few serious buyers usually scheduled private appointments during the week. I left the house on those days. Once I was still in the house when I overheard a scratchy-voiced woman, her voice shrilling to the downstairs, complain about the lack of a special cedar-lined closet for furs. “Doesn’t she have any minks and sables?” I heard her ask. And though I had some good furs, it no longer felt right to me to wear them. The worst were the many curious, who just wanted to see how people in our part of town lived. After a small silver frame from the Civil War, a present from my father in-law who had found it in an antique shop in Chattanooga, had disappeared , I made sure a friend or my mother were present during these “Open House” days. 174 Broken Butterfly I spent my days taking writing classes at UCLA Adult Education. I wrote a screenplay, but during this turmoil in my life I found it difficult to concentrate . Then there was Stephanie. There was no program for her at this time. She expressed an interest in flower arrangements. I enrolled her in a class in Santa Monica City College. Again, I shuttled her back and forth. Her progress pleased me, as she did extremely well in her class, especially considering her right hand was paralyzed. On those days when my mother picked her up and brought her home, Stephanie reported that she had inherited the talent of flower arranging from grandma. There was truth in that. Mother had always arranged flowers as a painter would, using blossoms according to color and combining them with branches from citrus trees or autumntinged shrubs, even using ornamental vegetables in her arrangements. Now mother and Stephanie together created some exotic bouquets for my “Open House” days. Stephanie exercised in the Beverly Hills Gym with me, and I took her iceskating in Santa Monica. I found a class where they taught her skills such as how to use an electric stove, how to change linens on a bed, and how to complete simple tasks of housekeeping. We went to the library together where I taught her how to use the index files to find the books she wanted to read. Books presented a problem for her. She would forget what she had read on page 1 when she came to page 2, requiring her to read the same text over and over, until some of it became ingrained in her memory. Stephanie and I visited Dr. Marianne Frostig in her condo in Santa Monica , when she mentioned Work Training Programs, Inc. A look of motherly concern crossed her face when she mentioned that Stephanie was now over twenty years old and still needed daily schooling in basic academics as well as learning how to manage household chores. Dr. Frostig knew of no other facility where Stephanie could reside for a limited time and learn to become independent. All other placements would be permanent care facilities. It reminded me of 1971, when we had been desperate to find a school for Stephanie until we found the Frostig Center. Dr. Frostig’s praise weighed in heavy in my decision to look at WTP as soon as possible. She explained that most of the clients of WTP—as they were called—had suffered brain...

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