Girlish

by Lara Lillibridge

  “I have never seen someone more determined to be happy than your mother,” one friend told Girl. “She makes a conscious decision and that’s the end of it.”

  notes from the fourth wall

  fierce love and loyalty wrapped in a blanket of annoyance and discontent

  Here’s something that is hard for me to admit: my stepmother loves me more than just about anyone else in my life. At Christmas this past year, she bought me a hand-blown glass ornament with a tree inside, a melding of tree and sky in one continuous line. It was exactly the sort of thing I loved, more perfectly suited to me than the blue, fuzzy loungewear my mother picked out. But my stepmother spelled my name wrong on the gift tag. She spelled it L-A-U-R-A, which might be a little piddly detail, but her misspelling my name has enraged me since I was old enough to read and notice such things. My mother always tells me I’m being silly, that we all know she can’t spell and I should get used to it. It would be fine if only she were illiterate, but my stepmother has a master’s degree, so in my opinion, there’s no excuse for misspelling a name that has only four letters. Worse still, my brother married a woman named Laura, so that letter U is the only thing that keeps my name my own, as we are both Lillibridges. Do you see how it always goes astray? I was trying to tell you the story of how my stepmother went out of her way and bought me a beautiful present for Christmas, but then my bitterness took over. This is often how it is when I try to tell stories about her.

  I know that she loves me, maybe as much as she loves my mom. When she and my mother broke up for a year, my stepmother still sent me emails, and that year she bought presents for my kids all by herself and not only mailed them on time but wrapped them, something my grief-wounded mother could not manage to do. I was still her child, even though she walked away from my mother.

  I always thought that if they broke up, I wouldn’t miss her. Yet, during their separation, I found myself unexpectedly sad. I didn’t write her letters or God forbid call her on the phone, but every now and then, I’d snap a picture with my phone and send it to her. When I was in Morgantown, West Virginia, at the bar where they broadcast the Mountaineers football show, I sat at the anchor’s desk, snapped a selfie, and sent it to my stepmother, since WVU was her alma mater. When the kids were particularly cute, I’d send her a picture of them. When I was in Tennessee, I took a picture of a jar of moonshine and sent her that too, because I remembered her story of going up the holler with her friend Dorothy and getting shot at by moonshiners. It was one of my favorite stories when I was young, because my stepmother trotted out her deep West Virginian accent when she told it and there were real bullets and everything.

  When I try to describe her on the page, I think of her walking in her terrible jeans—she only owns terrible jeans—that are too tight in the belly and rolled up at the hem because they are always a foot too long for her five-foot-two frame. She doesn’t believe in the value of nice things, so her clothing is always bought on extreme discount and looks it—some things are put on sale for a reason. I picture the stubble at the back of her neck that sticks out horizontally, because she always gets the same haircut, one where they shave her neck, but she never keeps up on it between appointments. At seventy her hair is still more brown than gray. I think of her walking in dead autumn leaves, listening to me talk—she always has time to listen to me. I know her words have saved me. She has always felt that no one I have dated was ever good enough for me. She has pulled me out of the fire time after time, and she would do so again, if I needed it. She will always tell me I am better than I think I am. She will always tell me how proud she is of me, how much she loves me, how much she loves my children. She will always make time to listen to me talk about anything and everything. She will always encourage me to be weird and different and not just like everyone else. And she will always be the one person whose hugs make me curve my shoulders forward, my sternum sinking back, tension held in my arms, gut, and thighs.

  As a child, I never felt like my stepmother loved me. Oh, she said the love word often enough, and hugged and kissed me—only on the cheek, never the lips like Mom did. She went to my school concerts and stayed home from work on occasion when I was home sick and Mom couldn’t take time off. She was very invested in my brother and me. But I never felt it. There was a wall she kept between us. Now, I am the one who creates distance when she reaches toward me.

  What do you do when the person who has saved you is also the person who makes you the craziest? How do I explain that great love and loyalty are at her core, yet our day-to-day interactions are constantly fraught with animosity? My children love unconditionally, and she loves them back the same way. Isn’t that enough—that she can give them what she could not give me? I avoid seeing her in person, so that I can try to write her with mercy. She is easier to love from a distance.

  Pat texted me today:

  “My love please go to utube and listen to susan boyle sing wild horses I dedicate the song to you no matter what you have written about me in your book. Love to you my dear and only daughter, your pat.”

  the last fight

  Girl and her boyfriend moved into a new house. The house Stepmother had bought was put up for sale. Girl paid off the five-thousand-dollar loan she had owed Stepmother for a decade. For the first time in a very long time, she was no longer beholden to her parents. They came to visit one weekend and stayed in Girl’s new house.

  “I’m making egg sandwiches for breakfast, do you want any?” Girl asked.

  “Yes, but I don’t want a sandwich,” Stepmother said. “I want two eggs, over easy. And I want an English muffin.” Girl turned on the stove, but Stepmother wasn’t done with her instructions.

  “On the plate, here’s how I want it to look: I want one half of a muffin, then an egg, then the second half of the muffin, then the other egg—all laid out on the plate.”

  Unreal. Cooking for four adults and two children was enough to manage, now Girl had to arrange it to Stepmother’s satisfaction? Ever since Stepmother had left Mother, everything about her infuriated Girl. She was still waiting for an apology, an act of contrition.

  “How about I’ll cook and you plate it however you want. This isn’t a restaurant.”

  “I guess I didn’t raise you to be a proper host,” Stepmother said.

  It was stupid, but Girl was fuming. Stepmother couldn’t be bothered to pick up after herself—not even throwing out her own apple core—and she was never satisfied with just eating what she was offered. Every meal had to be slightly different. If Girl planned to serve turkey, Stepmother only wanted ham. She took up all the space in the house, napping on the sofa, so no one else could watch TV or visit in the living room. There was a bed upstairs, not that she’d use it.

  Mother was happy to be subservient to Stepmother, but Girl had this crazy idea that everyone should be treated politely, even grown-up daughters. Still, she said nothing. Arguing with Stepmother wasn’t something she was capable of—she shook so hard with rage that she lost her words. Besides, Girl’s children loved Stepmother. Stepmother always came to visit with crafts and games and taught them magic tricks. Girl swallowed bitter bile and did the dishes, glad for a reason not to have to talk to anyone. After the children went to bed, Girl and Mother drank wine, ignoring Stepmother’s comments about drunks. Girl encouraged Mother to drink more.

  The next time her parents came to town, Girl asked them to stay in a hotel. Perhaps, if she had downtime at the end of each evening, she could resist throttling Stepmother.

  “I never thought there would come a time that I wasn’t welcome in my own daughter’s house,” Mother replied.

  “It’s not you, it’s Stepmother. She’s a horrible guest,” Girl said. She knew she wasn’t the first person to say so. Heck, one of Mother’s close friends was supposed to stay with them after surgery, but left after only one night. No one would explain what happened, other than “Stepmother was tired, and she said some things she shouldn’t have.” Girl didn’t need the details; s
he knew how offensive Stepmother was to the people closest to her—she didn’t think they deserved common courtesy. But it reassured Girl to know that she wasn’t the only one who couldn’t get along with Stepmother without biting back words and grinding her teeth. “I guess we didn’t teach you to be a good housekeeper … I’ll let you carry my suitcase … Girl, I really need you to get me ice water, but not cubed, I like the crushed ice …” all of her little holier-than-thou microaggressions that added up to more than Girl could tolerate. Still, Mother was not going to make it easy.

  “I don’t want to pit my daughter-in-law against my daughter, but when I visited Brother, his wife was so gracious. We felt so wanted.”

  “She is a lovely person, Mother, and you are trying to pit us against each other with that statement. Leave her out of it,” Girl said.

  They rarely talked on the phone, only calling each other a few times a year. Their exchanges were now made via text or email. “I feel like I’m intruding,” Mother explained.

  “I feel like you are too wrapped up in your own life to have time for me,” Girl wrote back.

  “If that’s how you feel, then I have failed as a mother,” Mother replied.

  Girl tried to explain how she felt about Stepmother, why she didn’t want to spend time with her. “I love her, but I don’t like her much,” she wrote.

  “I don’t like you much either,” Stepmother wrote back from Mother’s email account. Girl didn’t know why she was surprised that Mother had let her read their correspondence.

  Girl was frustrated. Her whole life, Mother and Stepmother acted like Girl was creating drama where none existed. She knew that many people found Stepmother intolerable.

  “I don’t know why men have such a problem with Stepmother,” Mother said.

  “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have a problem with Stepmother. I just think women are socialized not to say anything rude,” Girl answered. Apparently they should have socialized Girl better, because she couldn’t bring herself to be polite anymore. But as always, she struggled to explain what it was exactly that was so outrageous. It was myriad paper cuts, and she could not make them add up to a justifiable wound to show to Mother.

  “Mother,” she wrote, exhausted with the constant tense, useless rage living in her body, “Stepmother called your friend her ‘slave,’ and she said it in front of my children. She has no regard for anyone else’s feelings.” Mother was not swayed. Girl decided to pull out her biggest guns.

  “She’s completely inappropriate. Remember when she asked me what semen tasted like?”

  “You chose to remain in that conversation. You could have walked away.” Click, click, their fingers dashed off arguments across the Internet.

  “Did I ever tell you that she showed me your vibrator back in high school and wanted to show me how to use it?” This was the one thing she had always held back, the secret she thought would destroy Mother if she knew. The only time Mother made Stepmother shut up about anything was when she talked about Mother’s sex life. Mother might not care that Stepmother creeped Girl out, but she’d sure as shit care that Stepmother was talking about what Mother liked in bed. And Mother didn’t know the half of what Stepmother had confided in Girl over the years on that very subject.

  “I really don’t see why that upset you so much,” Mother typed. “Really, Girl, you are forty years old. It’s time to get over your childhood.”

  Girl had been wrong. Mother didn’t care about the vibrator story. She had held it as her trump card for years, and it turned out to hold no value—the joker in the deck of cards. Nothing Stepmother had ever done to Girl was enough to make Mother defend her child.

  “I don’t know why you are surprised,” her boyfriend said. “Your mother has always chosen her over you. Your stepmother might not know how abusive she was, but your mother knew, and she let it happen. She’s guiltier in my eyes. She was your mother, it was her job to protect you, and she didn’t.”

  The next time they spoke, Mother told Girl that she had had a series of mini-strokes that no one noticed. Girl rarely visited, and Stepmother didn’t pay close attention. They only discovered the brain damage after she got an MRI for a suspected heart problem. She was okay, she reassured Girl, and it was unlikely to happen again.

  “I went to the library the other day,” Mother said. “I rode my scooter because Stepmother had a sculpture class.”

  “Mother, isn’t that like three miles?”

  “It took me forty-five minutes, but I did it! I love my scooter. It’s so much fun.”

  Girl pictured Mother riding her motorized scooter to the library in the hot Key West sun. The scooter went even slower than Girl’s six-year-old did when he rode his bike. Girl closed her eyes, imagining her mother wipe sweat off her face as she rode for an hour with the sun baking down on her shoulders. Maybe she wore a hat. Girl shook her head. Mother chose the life she led willingly—she had gotten out from under Stepmother once, but ran back to her embrace as fast as her legs could carry her. Mother wasn’t a victim—she was a volunteer. But Girl didn’t have to play happy family anymore.

  Girl realized it was time to stop acting out the same role. This was the life that made her mother happy—it was no longer Girl’s place to criticize or convince her mother that she deserved better. Mother seemed completely fine with letting her relationship with Girl float away, as long as Stepmother was happy. Girl had her own family now, a life filled with art and writing, and a few close friends. She no longer had a mother-shaped hole in her chest. Girl wrote her stories, played with her children, and stopped expecting anything from her mother at all.

  Of course they still saw each other a few times a year. Girl’s children had a right to know their grandparents. Girl dropped the children off while she attended Liz’s wedding, two hours away from her parents’ house in Rochester. When she returned, the children were happily playing with Stepmother, and Mother was sitting in her recliner with a bandage on her hand.

  “I was walking outside and I fell,” Mother said. “Stepmother put a bandage on my hand, but it’s coming off, and it won’t stop bleeding. Can you fix it?”

  Girl unwrapped the gauze on her mother’s hand and uncovered a gash several inches long. The tissue underneath was bulging out of the wound, fat and muscle and red jello-y looking flesh.

  “Mom, you need to go to the hospital. You need stitches.”

  “Well, I thought I might, but Stepmother and the boys were having so much fun and they don’t get to see each other very often. I didn’t want to be a bother.”

  Girl took Mother to urgent care, and made sure they X-rayed her injured knee and checked out her swollen, bruised cheekbone. She held Mother’s hand as the surgeon trimmed away bits of viscera and stitched her hand closed, and this mothering of Mother made Girl want to cry. It was the most alone-time she had gotten with Mother since she and Stepmother got back together.

  “Mother, you are going to die if you don’t start advocating for yourself,” Girl told her in the examination room. “Stepmother isn’t capable of taking care of you. You have to speak up for yourself when you get hurt. You need to use your cane when you walk. You need to stop worrying about bothering other people.”

  “That’s exactly what I would tell my mother,” the nurse interjected. “Your daughter is absolutely right. You need to take care of yourself. No one else is going to, and next time you could get hurt even worse.”

  When they got back from the hospital, the children were already asleep. Girl and her parents sat talking in the living room. Girl tried to keep the conversation around her children, as it was the safest topic she could think of.

  “It’s really amazing to watch them grow up,” Girl said. “I know they are smarter than I am.” She and Mother often discussed the wonder they felt at watching these children develop.

  “I always felt that way about you and Brother,” Mother said.

  “Well, I’m smarter than all of you,” Stepmother said. Girl didn’t bother to rep
ly—she just excused herself and went to bed.

  A month later, Mother fell again.

  “Have you seen your mother lately?” a friend asked. “I saw her recently, and the whole side of her face has fallen. I could tell she’d had a stroke.”

  “I just talked to your parents,” a relative said. “Did you know your mother fell again this week?”

  Girl called her mother. “How are you, Mom?” she asked.

  “Oh, we’re having so much fun going out with friends. We’ve gotten to know a whole bunch of new people—I feel like we are real A-listers down here. We’re just so busy, having so much fun.”

  “I heard you fell.”

  “Yes, but I’m taking tai chi now. It’s really helping my balance. Sometimes Stepmother even comes, too. And I’ve lost weight. I just refuse to buy treats anymore, and it’s working, as long as I don’t let Stepmother do the shopping. Here, she wants to say hi, too.”

  “I’m so proud of you, Girl. You are a wonderful mother and a wonderful writer, and I’m so proud you finally got your master’s. I love you. Kiss-kiss,” Stepmother said. She said all the right words, but they only bounced off Girl’s shell.

  As soon as Girl heard Stepmother’s voice, she knew she wouldn’t be going down to visit Mother anytime soon. She knew Stepmother had saved her many times. She knew Stepmother loved her. When she closed her eyes, she could picture Stepmother and Mother dancing in the kitchen, gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes—there was no question that Stepmother was Mother’s one true love. But the very sound of Stepmother’s voice made Girl grind her teeth. Mother had chosen a life that made her happy, it was not Girl’s place to protect her or convince her that she deserved more. Mother was right, it was time for Girl to let go of her issues with her family of origin and focus on her present family. Girl was an adult, and no longer at the mercy of Stepmother, and just because they raised Girl did not obligate her to a lifetime of Thanksgiving dinners or intimate conversations. She no longer yearned for what she never had.