Just as I am beginning to touch on fears of being disowned and disinherited, I’m realizing that those things happen on my mother’s side of the family, too. The disinherited part happened to her. And she didn’t even write anything about anyone! I made the connection after learning via FaceBook last week that my grandfather’s widow, his second wife, “Nanna Frankie,” died in October. The reason I only found out through FaceBook is because our families are no longer in touch, and that’s because my mother got cut out of the will. Another theme in my life: money does not flow easily between different sides of mixed families - and sometimes not at all. In the summer of 1993, when my grandfather, “Pappa George,” then 77, was in a coma and dying, Frankie and her daughter called my mother to his hospital bedside. “So, there is no will,” the daughter said, and then proceeded to explain some scenario in which my mother would eventually get some money down the road, when George and Frankie’s fancy Miami apartment was sold. (Tacky fancy. As in the building appeared in the opening of Miami Vice.) It seemed fishy to my mother at the time, and that is because it was A FUCKING LIE. There was a will. Of course there was a will. There had been arguments over it. There had been promises made at certain times, and withholding threatened at others, all relating to it. My mother had even overheard George and Frankie arguing over the will when one of them hadn’t properly placed the receiver back in the cradle after a phone call with my mom, and so she heard them continue talking about it after they thought they’d hung up with her. In 2006, at 85, Frankie casually told my mother that she’d sold the apartment and bought a house for her daughter with the money, in which she’d live out the rest of her days. My mother called Frankie’s daughter - her step-sister - and asked, “Okay, I’m glad there’s a place for Frankie to live, but at what point do I get the portion of money I was supposed to inherit from the sale of the apartment? Has any arrangement been made for that?” My mother’s usually artificially chatty step-sister was cold. She told my mother blankly: “You will get nothing,” and hung up. Since learning of Frankie’s death last week, I’ve had Pappa George on the brain. When he came to mind again this morning, I realized that today is his birthday. He would have been 96. Yesterday, oblivious to this timing, I told a story about him to a ghostwriting client, as he showed me around his alma mater, Emerson College. At Rosh Hashanah dinner when I high school senior, Pappa George asked me where I wanted to go to college. “I’ll probably have to go to a state school,” I told him, “because my parents have told me I’ll have to pay for it myself.” “I’ll pay for it!” he interjected. “You get information on whatever school you want to go to and send it to me, and I’ll pay for it!” I should back up here and point out that when he promised this, he was thoroughly polluted, as he was most nights. My grandfather put away about a fifth of scotch a day. During working hours at his Seventh Avenue sportswear company, he was sharp as a tack. But by evening, he’d be completely sloshed, and he often wouldn’t remember the next day what it was he’d said the night before. I didn’t have enough awareness of that kind of thing then, at 17, to realize I shouldn’t take his offer too seriously. I was just so thrilled - and relieved. I had been worrying about how I’d pay for college myself. Pappa was the richest person I knew. He drove a Cadillac and belonged to a country club, and lived on Sutton Place. He’d given Frankie a seven-carat diamond engagement ring. I never understood why he didn’t help us out more. We lived so meagerly, in a small house in a little blue collar town. My mother struggled so hard, as a school teacher, to support us. Pappa would only make flashy gestures, here and there - for example, my junior year of college, when my divorced parents were arguing over whose turn it was to drive me to college in Albany, he swooped in and sent me in a chauffeured limo.  Which was especially ridiculous when you consider that I was working three jobs to pay for college myself. No, he didn’t make good on his offer to pay for school. It was most likely because Frankie intercepted my request. She answered the phone when I called after attending a college fair at the Nassau Coliseum. There, from pictures and brochures in a little convention floor booth, I fell in love with Emerson, which may as well have been called Theater Geek U. It seemed perfect for me. When I got home, I couldn’t wait to call Pappa George and tell him about it. But I got Frankie instead. I blurted everything I could remember about Emerson. She asked why I was telling her all this. “Pappa said he’d pay for college!” I told her. It was quiet for a second on the other end. Then she said, “I really think that’s a lot to ask.” And she hung up on me. Good times. I wonder whether Frankie and her daughter cut my mother out financially just because they were greedy, or for some other reason - like anger at Pappa George, for being so flashy and irresponsible with his money. Or for what happened on the day of his funeral. For some reason, for many years, I’d been under the impression that he’d only cheated on my real grandmother, Nanny Clarisse, before she died. There are stories of him asking my mother to do things like take Nanny to her radiation appointment so that he could go see his mistress, Louise. Pappa seemed to be much closer with Frankie. Unless he was at the office, he was pretty much always with her. She even took the El Dorado out of the parking garage under their building to drive him to and from Seventh Avenue each day. But he must have found some time to sneak off, because on the day of his funeral, while we were sitting shiva, Frankie received a letter from one Sylvia Weiss. “I loved your husband, too,” she wrote, “and he owed me $3,000.” Included were photocopies of both sides of a check, with his endorsement on the back side. None of us knew what to do with ourselves after reading that. Frankie went off to be alone in the bedroom while we all quietly ate delicatessen from cellophane-wrapped platters in the livingroom. Anyway. Somebody bust out some yahrtzeit candles. R.I.P. Frankie. And happy birthday, Pappa George, aka Yehuda Masket.

Just as I am beginning to touch on fears of being disowned and disinherited, I’m realizing that those things happen on my mother’s side of the family, too. The disinherited part happened to her. And she didn’t even write anything about anyone!

I made the connection after learning via FaceBook last week that my grandfather’s widow, his second wife, “Nanna Frankie,” died in October. The reason I only found out through FaceBook is because our families are no longer in touch, and that’s because my mother got cut out of the will. Another theme in my life: money does not flow easily between different sides of mixed families - and sometimes not at all.

In the summer of 1993, when my grandfather, “Pappa George,” then 77, was in a coma and dying, Frankie and her daughter called my mother to his hospital bedside. “So, there is no will,” the daughter said, and then proceeded to explain some scenario in which my mother would eventually get some money down the road, when George and Frankie’s fancy Miami apartment was sold. (Tacky fancy. As in the building appeared in the opening of Miami Vice.)

It seemed fishy to my mother at the time, and that is because it was A FUCKING LIE. There was a will. Of course there was a will. There had been arguments over it. There had been promises made at certain times, and withholding threatened at others, all relating to it. My mother had even overheard George and Frankie arguing over the will when one of them hadn’t properly placed the receiver back in the cradle after a phone call with my mom, and so she heard them continue talking about it after they thought they’d hung up with her.

In 2006, at 85, Frankie casually told my mother that she’d sold the apartment and bought a house for her daughter with the money, in which she’d live out the rest of her days. My mother called Frankie’s daughter - her step-sister - and asked, “Okay, I’m glad there’s a place for Frankie to live, but at what point do I get the portion of money I was supposed to inherit from the sale of the apartment? Has any arrangement been made for that?”

My mother’s usually artificially chatty step-sister was cold. She told my mother blankly: “You will get nothing,” and hung up.

Since learning of Frankie’s death last week, I’ve had Pappa George on the brain. When he came to mind again this morning, I realized that today is his birthday. He would have been 96.

Yesterday, oblivious to this timing, I told a story about him to a ghostwriting client, as he showed me around his alma mater, Emerson College.

At Rosh Hashanah dinner when I high school senior, Pappa George asked me where I wanted to go to college. “I’ll probably have to go to a state school,” I told him, “because my parents have told me I’ll have to pay for it myself.”

“I’ll pay for it!” he interjected. “You get information on whatever school you want to go to and send it to me, and I’ll pay for it!”

I should back up here and point out that when he promised this, he was thoroughly polluted, as he was most nights. My grandfather put away about a fifth of scotch a day. During working hours at his Seventh Avenue sportswear company, he was sharp as a tack. But by evening, he’d be completely sloshed, and he often wouldn’t remember the next day what it was he’d said the night before.

I didn’t have enough awareness of that kind of thing then, at 17, to realize I shouldn’t take his offer too seriously. I was just so thrilled - and relieved. I had been worrying about how I’d pay for college myself. Pappa was the richest person I knew. He drove a Cadillac and belonged to a country club, and lived on Sutton Place. He’d given Frankie a seven-carat diamond engagement ring.

I never understood why he didn’t help us out more. We lived so meagerly, in a small house in a little blue collar town. My mother struggled so hard, as a school teacher, to support us. Pappa would only make flashy gestures, here and there - for example, my junior year of college, when my divorced parents were arguing over whose turn it was to drive me to college in Albany, he swooped in and sent me in a chauffeured limo. 

Which was especially ridiculous when you consider that I was working three jobs to pay for college myself. No, he didn’t make good on his offer to pay for school. It was most likely because Frankie intercepted my request.

She answered the phone when I called after attending a college fair at the Nassau Coliseum. There, from pictures and brochures in a little convention floor booth, I fell in love with Emerson, which may as well have been called Theater Geek U. It seemed perfect for me.

When I got home, I couldn’t wait to call Pappa George and tell him about it. But I got Frankie instead. I blurted everything I could remember about Emerson. She asked why I was telling her all this. “Pappa said he’d pay for college!” I told her. It was quiet for a second on the other end. Then she said, “I really think that’s a lot to ask.” And she hung up on me. Good times.

I wonder whether Frankie and her daughter cut my mother out financially just because they were greedy, or for some other reason - like anger at Pappa George, for being so flashy and irresponsible with his money. Or for what happened on the day of his funeral.

For some reason, for many years, I’d been under the impression that he’d only cheated on my real grandmother, Nanny Clarisse, before she died. There are stories of him asking my mother to do things like take Nanny to her radiation appointment so that he could go see his mistress, Louise. Pappa seemed to be much closer with Frankie. Unless he was at the office, he was pretty much always with her. She even took the El Dorado out of the parking garage under their building to drive him to and from Seventh Avenue each day.

But he must have found some time to sneak off, because on the day of his funeral, while we were sitting shiva, Frankie received a letter from one Sylvia Weiss. “I loved your husband, too,” she wrote, “and he owed me $3,000.” Included were photocopies of both sides of a check, with his endorsement on the back side. None of us knew what to do with ourselves after reading that. Frankie went off to be alone in the bedroom while we all quietly ate delicatessen from cellophane-wrapped platters in the livingroom.

Anyway. Somebody bust out some yahrtzeit candles. R.I.P. Frankie. And happy birthday, Pappa George, aka Yehuda Masket.