The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss

Cooper tells the reader about his father, Wyatt Cooper: He mentions his birth and upbringing in Quitman, Mississippi; his profession as an actor; his marriage to Vanderbilt in 1963; his sons’ births; and his death in 1978 from heart surgery complications. Vanderbilt then tells Cooper about her first meeting with Wyatt at a dinner party she and Sidney Lumet attended. She and Wyatt fell in love immediately and began to build a future together, marrying and settling down in an apartment in New York City. Cooper tells her that he met his father’s family for a reunion in Mississippi and quickly bonded with the other Coopers, feeling like he belonged there. He expresses sympathy that Vanderbilt could not find the same sense of belonging with her family.

After the marriage, for the first time in her life, Vanderbilt was ready to make plans and think of the future because Wyatt was there. She then reveals to Cooper that before his older brother Carter was born, she suffered a miscarriage. The miscarriage made her fearful that she would be unable to have a child with Wyatt, and it sent her into a depression. However, Wyatt helped her through it, and soon she successfully carried her pregnancies with Carter and Cooper.