About My Mother

by Peggy Rowe

  “They look nice, honey,” she’d say. “But there are too many blue lights on this side of the porch. We could use some yellow and red lights over here.”

  Dad pretty much had free rein when it came to the Christmas garden, as long as certain landmarks were in the right place. The church had to be precisely in the center of the village, just as it was at the center of our lives. And the papier-mâché mountain had to straddle the tracks at the end of the garden. The effect of the train’s headlight bursting through the dark tunnel as it rounded the curve had a dramatic effect, especially when the room was dark.

  Running the train was a man’s job. One year I goaded my father into racing our electric train faster and faster around the Christmas garden until it jumped the track and crashed into the manger. I laughed hysterically when Baby Jesus was catapulted into the air over a white picket fence and splashed into the shallow duck pond. I laughed again at my father’s sheepish grin when Mom raised her eyebrows in disapproval.

  My father might have been merely a supporting player at this season of the year, but he was the best. The Christmas he built sturdy bookcases for my sister and me, Janet couldn’t wait to arrange her Nancy Drew Mysteries and the set of orange Childcraft books that were our go-to source for any and all questions. I kept my horse books in mine, along with a collection of horse figurines I had won at the annual Lions Club carnivals. The Christmas morning I received a shiny green bicycle from Santa Claus, I pretended not to notice the matching green paint on Dad’s hands. It merely confirmed my suspicions.

  My mother was famous for her sugar cookies. Every year Dad held one up to the light and said the same thing. “These are rolled so thin, I could read the newspaper through them, hon.”

  It wasn’t true, but it always made Mom laugh and say, “Oh, Carl.” At lunch, he’d wink and slide his coffee cup closer to me. We shared a passion for dunking sugar cookies. Mom looked the other way on such occasions. She was ahead of her time when it came to the concept of picking her battles. Lucky for me, my chair was next to my father’s. He never told me to get my elbows off the table or to chew with my mouth closed.

  My favorite part of Christmas, other than the presents, was the Christmas Eve candlelight service, a time of magic when my sister and I huddled between our parents in our new homemade outfits, with approximately one-hundred pounds of lace and ruffles. The true miracle of Christmas was that we could sit up straight under the weight. The best part of the service came after the preacher read the Christmas story from the Bible and the choir sang.

  One at a time the lights were extinguished, until we were plunged into total darkness, a perfect time for my favorite prayer. “Please, God, can I have a pony? I promise I’ll take care of him and love him.”

  Once I had said to my mother, “If you really loved me, you’d buy me a pony.” She responded that children who get everything they want are unhappy children. By Mom’s standards, I had a happy childhood indeed. After the preacher talked for a minute in the darkness, candles were lit, and the sanctuary was bathed in a soft yellow magic glow. That was a good thing except that peoples’ faces looked all spooky behind the flickering lights, like skulls in a scary movie.

  Then came the weird part of Christmas—the part that was unique to our family. I knew early on that every gift beneath the tree had been selected and purchased by my mother. She had even purchased the gifts my father, sister, and I gave to her.

  “I know what I need,” she’d say, weeks before Christmas. “I may as well just buy it myself. You can wrap it.” She also knew what my father needed, as well as what my sister and I needed.

  When Mom opened her gifts on Christmas morning, she oohed and aahed over our impeccable taste. “Oh, I love it,” she’d say, looking surprised. “It’s exactly what I wanted.”

  My biggest surprise on Christmas morning was the gifts I had given to my family. I watched with as much suspense as my sister as she unwrapped her present from me.

  This arrangement was fine with my father, who would rather listen to my mother play an entire concerto on the piano than to go into a store. Dad didn’t shop—ever! Mom bought his clothes and even his shoes, sometimes returning to the store three times for the perfect fit.

  The truth is that, when it came to gifts, Christmas in our house was a conspiracy. As the years went on, it became even more so . . . with one exception. The Christmas before Janet left for college, she took me aside.

  “Peggy, do you think you can keep a secret?” she asked.

  I couldn’t believe it. My heart felt like the thundering hoof beats of the great horse Silver. At the age of sixteen, Janet was actually going to confide in me—a first. She was treating me like a friend instead of the annoying twelve-year-old sister I was. I smiled. “Sure, I can keep a secret.”

  “How would you like to give Mom and Dad a surprise gift for Christmas this year?”

  “Uh, Mom doesn’t like surprises.”

  “I guarantee you, she and Dad will love this one! I’ve made arrangements with a photographer to take our picture. And I have enough money for a pretty frame.” Janet had a part-time job at Woolworth; naturally, then, she was independently wealthy.

  So thanks to my grown-up sister, my mother got to open a gift on Christmas morning that she had not purchased. Janet had been right, of course. Our parents looked at the photograph together and were too overwhelmed to speak. I was afraid Mom might cry, but she started running around the room, setting the picture here, and then there. In the end, our photograph went to live on the lovely old mahogany drop-leaf table across from the front door so that visitors would see it first thing.

  The following year, with my sister away at college, Dad came to me in early December. “Hon, could you find out what your mother wants for Christmas? I’ll give you some money, and you can pick it out for me. I’d give anything to see the look on her face when she finds a gift under the tree that’s really from me.”

  The following morning at breakfast I put out some feelers.

  “You’ve had that old bathrobe as long as I can remember, Mom.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Did your father ask you to buy me a new robe for Christmas?”

  “Well, no . . .” I lied, avoiding her eyes.

  “Because if he did, I’d rather buy it myself. I know what I like and where to get it on sale.”

  “But, he wants to surprise you,” I said, feeling miserably disloyal.

  “Oh, I’ll be surprised, all right. Just give me Dad’s money, and I’ll buy the robe. You can wrap it. It’ll be nicer than any robe you can find at Woolworth or the drug store.”

  She was wrong. I’d seen a pretty bathrobe at Woolworth that she would have loved. It was red and furry with a picture of the American flag on the back. We could have recited the pledge every morning while Mom flipped pancakes.

  That was the year I began doing Dad’s Christmas shopping for Mom. Or so he believed. Long before he even thought about Mom’s gift, she had already purchased and hidden it. She would give it to me, I would give her Dad’s money, wrap the gift, then give it to Dad so that he could surprise her on Christmas morning. It was as simple as that. Our deception took a detour the year Dad got specific.

  “Your mother likes pink,” he said. “I want to give her a pink sweater.”

  “Pink?! I haven’t bought anything pink since you were a baby!” she said when I told her. The next day she returned the pocketbook she had already purchased.

  That Christmas morning, we were treated to an Oscar-worthy performance as Mom modeled her gift. Dad’s face turned as pink as the sweater when Mom kissed his cheek.

  Thrilled at having surprised the love of his life once again, he winked at me. “You always seem to know what your mother likes. Do you mind doing my shopping?”

  “It’s no trouble at all,” I assured him. “Really, Dad. Christmas shopping is one of those family traditions I’ll always remember.”

  And that was the truth!

  Just the Two of Us
/>   For the first seven years of my life, my mother suffered from a condition called intermittent deafness. It came and went, kind of like those intermittent showers the weatherman warned about on the radio. I finally put two and two together after I heard a story about people who went blind from looking at the sun too often. I became convinced my mother went deaf from hearing the word pony too often.

  So for my seventh birthday, I changed my strategy.

  “Well, if I can’t have a you know what, can I at least have a cowboy hat? That prairie sun is awful hard on a cowboy’s eyes, you know.”

  Instead of admonishing, “Little ladies do not wear cowboy hats!” she lowered her head, stared at me for a minute, heaved a big sigh, and flopped backwards onto the sofa, gazing up at the ceiling as if she were . . . well . . . you know . . . dead.

  I’ve never known for certain if mother-love triumphed or if Mom decided she could survive with just one refined young lady for the time being. Or perhaps she’d convinced herself I was just going through a phase that would soon pass. Either way, my mother had seen her dream of a second refined young lady gallop out of sight, lace on her socks and a floppy bow in her hair. It was time to adjust her expectations, just as I had. In reality, she was trying to come to terms with having given birth to a misfit.

  Seconds later, she blinked, looked at me, and, sounding as old as my grandmother, asked, “What color?”

  It was a carpe diem moment for sure.

  “Tan like Roy Rogers,” I said in my outside voice. “And no lace or bows, please! Just a plain old cowboy hat!”

  The hat was a mere slippery slope to the pair of pointy-toed cowboy boots for Christmas. Mom knew a thing or two about economy so they were three sizes larger than my feet. My big sister could have worn them easily—which was as likely to happen as my waking up and finding a pony tied to my bedpost. Mom looked apologetic as she balled up the morning newspaper and wedged it into the toes.

  I cuddled the boots to my chest and rubbed the soft leather against my cheek. “If I get bored sitting around the campfire while I’m on a cattle drive, I can take out the paper and read the funnies.” I could tell by Mom’s smile that, had we been a family of huggers, this would be one of those occasions.

  In no time at all I learned to walk in my new boots without bumping into walls. And chairs. And doors. I never outgrew them. Mom was so smart. And who’d have guessed that fingers so adept at ruffles and lace could sew a Dale Evans cowgirl skirt—with fringe?

  The cap pistol was a harder sell and the final piece of the puzzle that nailed down my reputation as “neighborhood misfit.” At least Mom could brag that her daughter was the best-dressed misfit in the neighborhood.

  One afternoon in late summer, after my dog Topper and I had rounded up stray dogies from a canyon (the alley behind the house), I straddled the sturdy pole that supported the backyard grapevines to enjoy some ripe fruit. And presto! My virtual pony was born!

  After she recovered from the shock of my purple legs, Mom snipped the ripe bunches of Concord grapes from the vines and put them in a pot for jelly. Then she made a trip to the steamy attic and returned with a thick old cushion and some clothesline. With reins and a soft saddle, I mounted my grapevine steed and headed for the high country.

  Neighbors who’d grown accustomed to the two-legged horse leaping over their hedges and birdbaths now shook their heads at the dysfunctional kid perched atop the grapevines for hours at a time. I looked like some oversized ornament on a weathervane decked out in a ten-gallon hat and enormous pointy-toed boots. If they’d been close enough, they could have heard me singing “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” and firing off the occasional round from my cap pistol.

  Had they only known of my exciting adventures! I expect Mom did, because, where some mothers would have sought counseling, mine gave my pony a name: Cordie, after Concord grapes. She bought me horse books, and together we read Black Beauty and my all-time favorite, Misty of Chincoteague.

  My mother would continue to nourish my obsession, taking me to the movies to see My Friend Flicka and to horse shows at the state fair. But nothing was as memorable as the wild pony roundup in Chincoteague, Virginia—a trip that would reveal my mother’s bold nature like nothing else. Janet practically got down on her knees and begged to stay home and keep house for Dad. Poor Janet! She didn’t know what she was missing.

  Our first stop in Chincoteague was at a motel of sorts, where my mother had an unpleasant encounter with the owner. I don’t recall the exact words, but I do remember staring down at my cowboy boots and inching toward the door. It went something like this:

  “We have one vacancy. That’ll be $75.”

  “What?!” My mother was using her outside voice—something I’d always been discouraged from doing when I was inside. She slapped her right hand over her heart and fluttered it as though the news had given her a major coronary.

  “I want to rent a room for the night. I don’t want to buy the building!”

  “Take it or leave it.”

  “Shame on you, taking advantage of a woman and child! I have a good mind to report you!” There was more, but it was hard to hear from the sidewalk. Instead of calling the government authorities, she drove around town looking for another place to spend the night. Still unsuccessful at sunset, we pulled up to the volunteer fire department.

  “I’ll wait in the car,” I said.

  “Oh no, you won’t. I need you with me.”

  Inside my mother put her arm around me and explained to the firemen that we were far from home with no place to stay. It was Bethlehem all over again, only instead of a crude stable, we spent the night in our Chevy station wagon, safely parked outside the front door of the firehouse—complete with complimentary donuts and bathroom privileges. It occurred to me that, if Joseph had had my mother along, the Christmas story would have played out much differently.

  There were no shepherds or kings to stand guard, just some firemen nearby. But just like the Star of Bethlehem shone down on the little stable, the engine house light shone down on our Chevy station wagon with the wooden side panels. Slathered in slippery bug repellent, we locked the doors, cracked the windows, and were asleep in no time.

  The next day, we sat in a boat as saltwater cowboys swam dozens of ponies across the Assateague Channel. Dozens of beautiful, courageous ponies—and I couldn’t even have one. They came so close, I fantasized about jumping from the rail of the boat onto the back of a pony that looked just like Misty’s spotted mother, Phantom.

  Afterwards Mom drove us to the Beebe ranch featured in Misty of Chincoteague. She parked at the curb and we stared for a long time. Suddenly she said, “Come on,” and got out of the car.

  “Where are you going?” I protested. “We can’t go in there! We don’t know these people!”

  “Of course we do. We bought their book and read it, didn’t we?” She looked at me and shrugged. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Come on. We’ve come this far.” And then, bold as brass, she walked right up to the door like she was a long-lost relative. My mother had more nerve than the snakes that slithered toward Grandma Daisy while she was swinging her garden hoe. When a friendly Mr. Beebe came outside and spoke with us, Mom introduced herself.

  “We’re practically neighbors,” she said, and she proceeded to tell him about growing up in Fleeton, Virginia.

  Yes, he had heard of Fleeton, and yes, he might even have heard of Captain Charles Williams, my grandfather. Minutes later, he gave me a big smile and said, “Thank you for coming and for saying hello to me. I hope you and your little girl have a good visit.”

  “What a nice man!” she said as we returned to our car.

  I could tell he had been impressed by my cowboy boots and Dale Evans skirt.

  That evening, we went to the carnival grounds and watched farriers trim the ponies’ hooves. I was shocked at how grotesque and misshapen they were. A cowboy explained that living on the wet marshland caused the hooves to be soft and easily molded. I had learn
ed from my reading that their large bellies were a result of eating the salty marsh grasses.

  My mother’s favorite part of the trip was the food at the carnival grounds. “It’s the best in the world,” she said. “And these country cooks know what they’re doing.” She had oyster fritters and a soft crab and sliced red tomatoes. I had corn on the cob and a hush puppy (that didn’t look at all like a dog).

  That night, as we slept in front of the fire department with a sheet pulled up to our necks, a deafening siren screamed in the wee hours and sent us bolting upright. In a Kumbaya moment, with our faces all shiny and slippery and our eyes bugged out, we held on to each other, shaking, then laughing hysterically as engines raced from the firehouse just feet away.

  “Were you scared?” I asked when it was quiet again and we were lying in our coffinlike bed on wheels.

  Mom thought for a moment. “Not as scared as I was the night I almost died of appendicitis. The doctor carried me through the fog to a boat that took us to Baltimore. I had a high fever and terrible pain in my side.”

  I leaned on my elbows and watched Mom’s face intently in the light from the firehouse. I had heard the story before, of course, but nobody told a story quite like my mother. It was a little different each time. It was hard to tell for sure because of all the gooey bug repellent, but I was almost certain there were tears on her cheeks.

  “Were you afraid because you thought you would die?” I asked.

  “I was afraid because Mama wasn’t there. She’d just had my baby sister. And how could she manage without me if I didn’t come back?”

  I lay back down and snuggled against my mother’s side. She put her arm around my shoulder, and I felt like the luckiest person in the world. Minutes later we drifted back to sleep with mosquitos buzzing around our ears. Just the two of us.

  The next morning at the pony auction, I almost pointed out again that the foals were small enough to fit in the back of our station wagon, but I changed my mind.