by KL Kreig
“He used to, I’m afraid. When I told him I was pregnant with you girls and that regardless if he wanted me to or not I was marrying your father, Dan,” she adds his name as if I don’t know it, “I told him that if he didn’t quit drinking, he’d never see you two after you were born.”
“What?” I don’t believe this. This can’t be true. “But I never knew…”
“I never wanted you to know.” My mother changes right before my eyes. She regresses to a childlike state. She shrinks in her chair, becoming so small I don’t recognize her. “I loved your grandfather, Laurel, so very much, but he was not a nice man when he drank. When I was a child, he was not the PooPa you knew when you were a child. He was the polar opposite, in fact.”
I shrink in my own chair. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s hard to believe, I know. He had been an alcoholic since before I was born, but my mother loved him and thought she could change him, so she married him anyway. And that’s how I remember him, you see. The volatile moods. Sneaking into the garage where he hid his bottle. The yelling late at night. He left me in the car while he drank in the bar countless times. He scared off boyfriends. He broke things. He even crashed the car when I was six.” She traces the scar along her hairline, barely visible. She’d told me she fell riding her bike.
“You got that from…”
“Yes. Eight stitches.”
“Not a bike accident?”
“I’m afraid not.”
This isn’t real. It makes no sense. That was not the grandfather I knew. I put him on a pedestal. I revered him. He tickled me. He taught me to fish. He took me camping. He scratched my back. He gave me full-sugared Pepsi. We ate watermelon with salt and Wheaties for dinner. I looked up to him. He was perfection.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Because he changed after you and Esther were born. He loved you enough…” She doesn’t need to say anymore. He loved us enough to quit drinking. From her point of view, he must have loved us more than her. “He wanted to be part of your lives, Laurel. He quit drinking the day you two were born.”
“That must have been hard for you,” I offer truthfully.
“It was, but it was enough that he did it for you girls.”
“Was it?” I ask, because I don’t think it was. It wouldn’t be for me.
“He never wanted you to know, Laurel,” she says, evading my question.
“Then why did you tell me?”
“Understanding starts at the beginning, remember?”
She means her. She wants me to understand her. And while she doesn’t offer anything else on that subject, she moves on to the reason I’m here, without even prompting.
“I fell in love with your father at the tail end of college. He was…” She pauses, her face suddenly glowing as if she were plugged into a socket. “Gosh, he was magnetic. He courted me in old-school style.”
“What does that mean?” I ask. Is she still in love with him?
“He was a gentleman. He opened my door. He refused to let me pay on our dates. He told me I was special. He treated me special. He wanted to…wait. I was the aggressor that night I ended up pregnant.”
Oh boy. I do not want to hear this.
“He insisted on asking my father for my hand, even though he knew my father didn’t like him. It was so archaic and traditional, but he was adamant. I thought it was sweet.”
Recalling the story, she told me years ago, how my grandfather said he wasn’t the One, I surmise the answer my father received.
“He said no, didn’t he?”
Her face screws up. “I’m not sure I’ve seen him so mad. But we married anyway, as you know. And do you know why I married him, Laurel?”
I wipe sweat from my brow. I’m not feeling at all well.
“Because you were pregnant?” I answer.
“No.” Her eyes grab mine in the moonlight, holding on tight. I couldn’t look away if I wanted to. “Because that child in me lived to defy my father even as an adult.”
I am seeing a whole new side to my mother.
“That doesn’t seem like a very good reason.”
“It wasn’t. It was absolutely the wrong reason.” Her attention turns to the treehouse now. Crickets chirp at earsplitting decibels in the background. I want this story. This is why I came, but I long for my bed. I need my husband. I can hardly keep my eyes open. “You’re wondering why he left?”
“Yes,” I mutter.
This is it. Honesty. Answers.
Mother breathes in. Her inhale is slow.
She breathes back out. Her exhale stretches out.
I wait for. For the wrongs I committed. Every muscle is tensed in anticipation.
You were too loud.
You talked back too much.
You didn’t pick up your toys when you were told.
You let him cut Esther’s hair.
But what I hear is the exact opposite of what I’ve believed all these years.
“It wasn’t you, Laurel.” Her tone is adamant. Pleading, almost. She reaches for my hand and I let her take it. Her eyes are wide and wild. “It wasn’t you. It wasn’t Esther. And it wasn’t me. Your father…”
“My father, what?” I prompt her when she doesn’t continue. She’s on the verge of tears.
“A few months after you girls were born, your father lost his supervisor’s job at the box company. We definitely weren’t rich before, but money was more than tight living on a teacher’s salary with two new babies. We only managed thanks to your grandparents. They watched you so we didn’t have to pay for daycare. They had us over for meals, gave us money for groceries. They bought you clothes and diapers and toys. Your father was very prideful, and it was a severe blow to his ego to take help from someone else, especially my parents, because he knew my father didn’t care for him in the first place. He felt emasculated and defeated and he did what I never thought he would do.”
“Did he hit you?” I ask. She won’t look at me now.
He hit her?
“Did he hit us?”
“He changed. He was different when he drank.”
“He drank?” I spit angrily. I am not a mean person, but I hope that fucker screams for eternity in the fiery bowels of hell. “Don’t defend him. He doesn’t deserve that.”
“I’m not. He wasn’t like that when I married him. Your father didn’t drink but on occasion before we got married. He knew that was a nonstarter for me. But he spiraled out of control when he lost his job. And a few beers a night turned into a twelve-pack a night, which turned into a whiskey fixation. He spent money we didn’t have on alcohol and he didn’t care. It took him six months to land a new job and when he did, it was at half the pay he was making. And then he got fired because he either wouldn’t show up or he’d show up late. He repeated this cycle for years, his drinking escalating. His anger building. Sometimes he didn’t even come home at night. I couldn’t trust him at all with you girls. I was never more grateful for your grandparents.”
I am stunned.
“Unbelievable.”
“When I told him I was kicking him out and that he’d never see you or Esther again, he sobered up. For a while anyway. I thought maybe we’d been through the worst of it and were on the upside. That we’d get our family back, but…”
But…
Then it all clicks.
“The day he took Esther to get her hair cut?” It was such a great day. Wasn’t it?
“He was drunk off his ass, Laurel. He gave you two money to spend in Beck’s but went next door to the bar and took four shots of Jack. He took you to the park but only so he could sit in his car and get smashed.”
No, he didn’t. He was with us the whole time. Wasn’t he?
I strain to remember, but all that comes to mind is Esther and I taking turns pushing each other on the swing and playing on the seesaw and giggling while we helped each other pick out our treats.
“How do you know that?”
“Small towns have their benefits, I suppose. Plus, he smelled like he’d fallen into a distillery vat when he walked through the door.”
“But you were mad at me when we came home that night?”
“Mad at you?” Her forehead wrinkles in confusion. “Laurel, I was not mad at you. I was terrified for you and Esther. If anything happened to you…” Her voice cracks and she cups her hand over her mouth.
“He came back, and you sent him away,” I mumble more to myself than to her.
She nods. “He called me and told me he’d been six months sober and wanted to see you two. I reluctantly agreed because if he could be a part of your life, I didn’t want to stand in the way of that. But when he got there, it was obvious he’d been drinking. I told him to leave and never come back. Ever. Your grandfather threatened to shoot him dead cold if he did. He meant it.”
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
How could I have been so blind? My mother wasn’t keeping me from my father. She was protecting me from him.
“You have not a thing to be sorry for. It’s all on me. I am the one who is sorry, Laurel. I loved him and I tried to make it work, but I should never have let him stay that long. I couldn’t imagine your childhood the way mine was. I made many mistakes, I admit, but that was not going to be one of them. I heard from his sister that he drank himself into an early grave several years ago. I’m sorry I never told you. I should have. Even though I know I did the right thing by making him leave, I’ve felt guilty about it ever since. I was the reason you didn’t have a father, and I asked myself every night when I went to bed what I did wrong, you know? Why wasn’t I enough? For anyone.”
In my short life, I have come to learn many things. The most important being that you should not judge others, for you do not understand their trials. Everyone holds their own secrets and buried stories and hidden scars and because of that, everyone deserves grace, even though you may not think they do.
“Thank you for putting Esther and me first.” I push my way out of my chair. My body is stiff. My right leg throbs. But I grit through the discomfort and kneel at her feet, gripping her hands. A river that carries freed secrets and deep wounds runs off the tip of her chin. “You’re enough, Mom.” She tries to stifle her sobs, but her entire body quivers. “You are enough.”
“So, are you, my sweet girl,” she tells me, her voice tight and strangled. “And I’m sorry that I didn’t make you feel that way.”
This is the second most important thing I have learned in my short life: When someone who has hurt you tells you they are sorry, they don’t need you to belittle their apology with an “It’s okay.” They need something far more valuable and far more difficult to offer.
“You’re forgiven.”
My mother loses it then. And so, do I. We hold each other and openly weep.
This brings me to the third most important thing I have learned in my short life: Forgiveness isn’t for the other person; it’s for you. It’s only with this release that you’ll be able to see a path forward.
Mine is finally clear.
“Mom, I have a confession to make too.”
“Oh?” she asks, wiping her cheeks clean.
“Remember those hot dogs that went missing that summer when Esther and I were eight?”
“Yes?”
I sit back on my heels and shrug sheepishly. “Esther and I took them. We had a hot dog eating contest in the treehouse.”
My mother’s lips rise like someone held them on both sides and pushed. She starts to slowly rock in her chair and announces casually, “I know, dear.”
“You knew?”
“Why, of course.”
She knew. Of course, she knew. Mother’s always know.
Regardless…now my canvas is finally clean. And so is my mother’s.
26
Never Stop
Laurel
Present
October 29, 8:02 p.m.
“We saw The Lion King last night at the Performing Arts Center,” I tell my mother excitedly. “Roth surprised me with tickets. Can you believe that?”
It was a good day yesterday. Roth left me a card on the counter with simple instructions to be dressed in cocktail attire by 6:00 p.m. sharp for the surprise of a lifetime. Of course, he hovered around all day, making sure I was feeling well enough to go, and told me multiple times that it was okay if I wasn’t up to it. But I was able to manage the pain better for some reason. And even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have missed the “surprise of a lifetime” for anything. Yesterday was a blessing.
“He’s a great husband, so of course I can. Was it amazing?” my mother asks, though she has to already know the answer to that.
Our trip to Leone a few months ago diametrically changed our relationship for the better. Once the air was cleared and the tears were shed, we spent a surprisingly pleasant two weeks with her. Roth took us roller skating, and we laughed for an hour solid. Balancing on eight wheels was harder than I remembered.
We also took a couple of days out at Branched Oak, where my mother happily joined us. That’s the first time she’s ever been camping with me. Roth canoed us around the lake. He caught three fish. I caught four. But Mother was the trophy winner, snagging herself a baker’s dozen. She even surprised us by fileting a couple of the walleye we caught and making us fabulous fish tacos. I didn’t know she could do either, and when she said, “My father taught me. It’s one of my best memories of him,” I knew we were both on the mend.
That two weeks was a time of healing for us both. We laughed and joked and talked like old sorority sisters. Mother was relaxed and genuine, not a single slight or dig either then or since. It felt like a home, something I missed out on growing up.
I can truthfully say I’ve never had a better time with my mother. Roth agreed. It’s as if a coat of armor has been peeled from my body and I am so much lighter in mind and spirit. Now Mother and I talk every day, sometimes more than once. She’s actually a very funny person.
“So amazing!” I gush. I babble about the costumes and the interaction with the audience. “And the singing. The singing was so unbelievably incredible. I want to go back tonight.”
But today is not a great day. I’m glad The Lion King isn’t tonight. Every bone in my body aches in a way I can’t describe. Literally down to the marrow. I am cozied up in the corner of the couch, my feet propped up on Roth’s legs. I’m dressed in sweats, a hoodie, and have a thick quilt pulled up over me. My blood is still chilled. Roth, on the other hand, is wearing gym shorts and a baggy tee and he appears to be sweating his ass off. He calls me the human radiator.
“How are you feeling today, dear?” Mother asks with concern. I do a great job trying to hide behind my stories and charisma, but the fact of the matter is, I am sliding backward pretty quickly. Everyone knows it.
“It’s not my best day,” I admit on a half smile. Roth slips his hand under the blanket and strokes my thigh.
“I’m sorry,” Mother says, her voice creaking. Her eyes water.
“Tomorrow will be better. Guess what my old students did for me today?”
I don’t have an official class anymore. I haven’t since I was diagnosed with cancer and had to take a leave of absence to receive treatment. I wasn’t allowed back during my short remission because of the infection potential, and then, of course, the worst of the worst happened. I’ve missed an entire school year, and now I won’t return at all.
I miss teaching. I miss the excitement of getting to know my kids and witness the pop in their eyes when they learn something new and the small satisfaction that I had some sort of influence in their lives.
“I’m sure they miss you too, Laurel.” Who knew my mother was so intuitive?
“Do you need a pain pill, love?” Roth mouths.
I do, but right now it’s my heart that’s aching more than anything. No pill can dull that exact pain, I’ve found. Plus, I hate the way they make me feel. Loopy and groggy. Forgetful. I’m living my
last days sleeping and that’s not what I wanted either, but I cannot function without them. And I’ve been taking more and more because they aren’t working as effectively as they once did.
So, I nod reluctantly, not wanting a one-way trip back to the emergency room. I’ve been there six times in the last four months. I’ve had two infections, a blood clot, two visits for what amounted to pain management issues, and last week we were there again because I couldn’t catch my breath. “Dyspnea,” the ER doc said dryly. “A common complaint among cancer patients, especially toward the end of life.” He had a real bedside manner about him, that one (insert eye roll here). They wanted to admit me, but I refused, terrified I would die there, and I don’t want to die in the hospital. If they put you in the hospice wing, you’re going straight to the funeral home. So, they gave me yet another pill to treat my dyspnea and a printout on at-home methods to manage shortness of breath. I threw it in the garbage on the way out.
“What did they do for you, dear? I bet it was wonderful.”
It was. “They made the cutest get-well video. Roth was in on it too. He sent them some pictures and the kids each gave their own individual messages. I cried.”
“It sounds wonderful.”
“I’ll send it to you. Get a tissue or two ready. I went through five.”
Roth brings my pills and I make small talk with my mother for a few more minutes until they kick in and I can’t keep my eyes open any longer.
“I love you, Laureli.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
“Want to head into bed?” Roth asks when we hang up. He takes the phone I’d propped on my lap and sets it on the end table.
“No. I want to be with you.”
“Okay, then. Come here.” He pats his lap and I lumber around to lay my head on it. After readjusting the blanket over me, he tucks one of the couch pillows underneath my head. He runs his fingers through my hair that’s now about four or five inches long. It’s thin and patchy in places, but I feel a bit more like me again, regardless.
“Like this?” he asks when I moan.
“Very much.” I’ll be asleep in sixty seconds if he keeps this up.