“Oh,” she said, looking down at her soup. “I didn’t know that.... I’m sorry, Judy.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “No one calls me that anymore. They just call me Judy now.”
The waiter arrived with our food. Kung pao chicken for me and Mama, seafood deluxe for Navid. He put a set of chopsticks beside my plate. I grinned at him.
“Can you use those?” Mama asked.
“Sure,” I said. “Daddy and I use them all the time.”
I picked up a peanut with my chopsticks and popped it into my mouth, pleased with myself for being able to do it.
“Well, look at you,” Mama cooed. “Isn’t that something, Navid?”
He smiled and nodded. “When you come to visit us, I’ll cook you something from my country,” he said.
“Where’s that?”
“Persia,” he said. “That’s in the Middle East, between Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“Are you a Muslim?” I asked. It would be cool to know a Muslim.
“No, not Muslim,” he said. “My family are Bahá’ís. That’s a faith that was born in Persia in the eighteen hundreds.”
“Oh,” I said. I’d never heard of that.
“We are going to have a Persian Bahá’í wedding,” Mama said, “after the baby is born. Maybe we can do that while you’re out there with us. I would love that.”
“That would be cool,” I said. I meant it, too. I thought it would be very cool to see a Persian Bahá’í wedding. It sounded very exotic.
Mama smiled and seemed to relax a little. She took a bite of her chicken and her eyes widened. Immediately she reached for her water.
“That’s hot!” she said.
I giggled. “It’s these little red peppers,” I said, picking one up with my chopsticks. “Just put them on the side of your plate if you don’t like them.”
“Are you eating them?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said, putting the pepper in my mouth. I tried to chew it without gasping. I did eat the peppers, but usually I cut them into tiny pieces and ate them with other stuff. I swallowed the pepper and smiled at her, my mouth on fire. “They’re good.”
“You like to try new foods?” Navid said. “That’s good. You’ll like my food, then. Your mother ...” He looked at her and laughed. “She likes Persian food some, but when I make Indian food, she doesn’t like it so much.”
“Hey, I’m learning,” she said, swatting at him playfully. “I just can’t eat it right now because of the baby.”
He laughed again. “When the baby comes, he will eat my food.”
“Oh no, you are not giving our baby curry. At least not until she’s older.”
Navid just smiled.
“How long have you lived in the States?” I asked. “You don’t sound like you come from someplace else.”
“I came here when I was ten,” he said. “Iran is not such a good place for Bahá’ís now. My mother and father came to Los Angeles and opened a yogurt shop.”
“Oh.” For some reason that disappointed me.
“But my grandparents and aunts and cousins still live in Iran.”
“Have you been?” I asked Mama.
“No,” she said. “It’s not safe for Bahá’ís in Iran now. But Navid has lots of family in the States, so the baby will learn about Persia from them. She’ll be a proper little Persian girl,” she said, smiling.
“I want him to know where he comes from,” Navid said.
“You guys are funny,” I said. They looked at me, puzzled.
“You keep calling the baby him,” I said to Navid. “And Mama keeps calling it her.”
They both laughed.
“Navid would really like to have a son,” Mama said. “And I always just assume it’s a girl like you and ... well, like you.”
“Do you want another girl?” I asked.
“Oh, I just want the baby to be healthy,” she said. She was picking at her food with her fork, carefully pushing all the peppers into a pile at the side of her plate.
“And that,” Navid said, covering her hand with his, “is exactly why you should have this baby at the hospital, just to be safe.”
Mama smiled at him. “Oh, honey,” she said, “I had Judy in a tent at Woodstock, for God’s sake. Giving birth is a natural process. Millions of women give birth at home. It’s just the way it should be.”
“And countless women die in childbirth,” Navid said. “In my country, it happens all the time. Even here it happens more than you’d think. Besides, when you had Judy, you were nineteen years old. You’re thirty-one now. That puts you at a higher risk for complications.”
I watched them talking, thinking how much they seemed like a married couple. It made me happy and sad, all at the same time.
When we’d finished our dinner, Mama asked if I wanted to come back to their hotel and swim in the indoor pool.
“I don’t have my swimsuit,” I said.
“We can get you one in the gift shop,” she said. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
But I thought about Daddy, sitting at home waiting for me. And how he’d said not to go anywhere but the restaurant.
“No,” I said. “I have homework.”
So they drove me home. Navid waited in the car while Mama walked with me to the door.
“Thanks for coming, honey,” she said. “It’s just so good to see you.”
She hugged me and I could feel a wet spot on her cheek.
“It was fun,” I said.
“We’ll be here until Sunday,” Mama said. “I’ll call your dad and set up something for tomorrow.”
“I can’t tomorrow,” I said. “I have a test on Friday I have to study for.”
“Okay, then, how about Friday? We can go to dinner again, and maybe you can come back and swim with me. I’m quite a sight in my swimsuit, you know.”
She patted her swollen belly and laughed.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Well, good night, Sweet Judy. I love you.”
“Good night, Mama.” I kissed her cheek and went inside.
Daddy was sitting in the living room, watching television. He smiled at me when I came in.
“So, how was it?”
“It was okay.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good. It was all right.”
I sat beside him on the couch.
“Mama got the kung pao chicken,” I said, smiling.
“No way! She doesn’t like spicy food.”
“She didn’t know it was spicy. She just ordered it because I did.”
Daddy laughed. “Was she surprised?”
“Yeah, she was. I don’t think she liked it very much.”
“I bet she didn’t.”
We sat a minute, and I said, “Navid is nice. He’s from Persia.”
“Persia? You mean Iran? How did Cassie meet someone from Iran?”
“He came here when he was a kid. He’s a teacher at a college in Pasadena.”
“Oh,” Daddy said.
“He wants the baby to be a boy.”
Daddy said nothing.
“Did you want me to be a boy before I was born?” I asked him.
He smiled at me. “No, honey. I just wanted you to be healthy.”
“That’s what Mama says, too.”
He nodded.
“They’re going to get married after the baby’s born,” I said. I wasn’t sure it was right to tell him, but I figured he’d find out sometime anyway. “It’s gonna be a Bahá’í wedding.”
“He’s a Bahá’í?”
“Yeah.”
“So, a Bahá’í wedding. That will be different, I guess.”
“Mama wants me to come.”
“To the wedding? Where will it be? Not in Iran!”
“No, in Los Angeles. She wants me to come after the baby is born and stay for the wedding.”
“And what do you think about that?” He was watching me closely.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I mea
n, I think it would be cool to see a Bahá’í wedding, but ... I don’t know.”
“Well, if you want to go, I guess I could take you. To Los Angeles, that is, not to the wedding. I don’t think I want to go to the wedding.”
I nodded. I understood why he wouldn’t want to go.
“She wants me to go out again on Friday,” I said.
“Well, if you want to go that’s okay.”
“She said I could bring my swimsuit and swim at the hotel pool.”
“Okay.” Daddy leaned back and sighed.
“Is it okay? Really?” I had to ask. He didn’t seem okay.
“Yes, honey, it’s okay. She’s your mother and you haven’t seen her in a long time. It’s okay for you to spend some time with her.”
“Okay.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I’m gonna go call Lee Ann.”
I’d promised to call her after dinner. She wanted to know everything.
“A Persian wedding? How cool. Are you going?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Daddy said he’d take me to Los Angeles if I want to go.”
“Can I come?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I can ask, anyway.”
“I really want to see a Persian wedding.”
“I’ll ask Daddy,” I promised.
“So, it was okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, it was okay. Mama seems happy and Navid’s nice. They’re like a married couple already.”
“I can’t believe your mom is going to marry a Persian.”
“Yeah, pretty weird.”
“Is she going to become a Bahá’í?”
“I don’t think so.”
I thought about that for a minute, then said, “Lee Ann, don’t tell anyone at school, okay?”
“What ... that your mom is back, or that she’s marrying a Persian?”
“All of it. Just don’t tell anyone about it, okay?”
“Not even Vernita? You have to tell her. She already knows your mom is here.”
“Okay, but just Vernita. No one else.”
“Okay,” she agreed. “But I still think it’s pretty cool.”
We did tell Vernita about it the next day at lunch. Her eyes widened when she heard about the wedding.
“That sounds cool,” she said. “Will she have to wear one of those veils over her face?”
“I think that’s Muslim,” I said. But I wasn’t sure. I’d have to ask Mama.
I made her promise not to tell anyone else about Mama. Moving from grade school to junior high had given me a measure of anonymity. Some of the kids from my grade school remembered about Mama and how she’d tried to take me and then how she almost went to Guyana. But most of the kids in my junior high didn’t know any of that. If they bothered to ask, I just told them my parents were divorced. Sometimes I made up stories about where my mother was—she was an artist and had moved to the desert to paint or an archaeologist on a dig in Egypt.
I didn’t tell the truth, which was that my mother had been crazy and kidnapped me and taken me to a commune and almost died of a drug overdose and then joined a cult. And that it was my fault she left the second time, because I was so mean to her. That last part I hadn’t even told Lee Ann.
Junior high was hard enough without everyone knowing about Mama.
On Friday at five, Mama and Navid arrived to pick me up for dinner. I carried an overnight bag with my swimsuit and beach towel. We went to Gringo’s Taco House and ate, then drove to the Ramada Inn. Mama emerged from the bathroom in a bright red maternity swimsuit, her huge belly pushing its way into the room ahead of her. She waddled slightly and looked altogether ridiculous. I laughed when I saw her, but Navid kissed her cheek and told her she was beautiful.
Mama and I paddled around the pool for a while as Navid watched from the deck. He had not brought his swim trunks.
“I remember when I was pregnant with you, I loved to go swimming,” Mama said, pushing wet hair back from her face. “I felt so light in the water. But this time”—she patted her stomach—“I just feel like a barge. I’ve gained so much weight with this pregnancy. Not like with you.” She smiled at me.
“Are you really going to have the baby at home?” I asked.
“I hope so,” she said. “Navid is worried about it, but I think I’ll be fine. We’ll have a midwife with us—that’s a woman who knows all about birthing and stuff. And if anything happens that shouldn’t, she’ll know what to do.”
She laughed. “It can’t be any worse than with you. God, we were all just partying and then, whoosh, there you came two weeks early. We couldn’t even find a nurse until after it was all over. Your dad was freaking out, but I knew it would be okay... . And it was. You were perfect.”
“If I was perfect, then why did you leave?” I asked it before I could stop myself. It just came out of my mouth.
“Oh, my Sweet Judy, I didn’t want to leave you. I wanted to take you with me. But they wouldn’t let me.”
I dove under the water and swam to the opposite side of the pool. After a minute, she paddled over to where I was.
“I’m so sorry, baby. I really didn’t want to leave you. I just had to get out of Indiana. I felt like I was dying here. And your dad ...”
“Daddy’s great,” I said. “He’s the best dad in the world.”
“Oh, I know that, honey. He loves you and he’s taken really good care of you, and he’s a good person. But I couldn’t stay with him. It would have killed me. And eventually it would have killed him, too.”
I hooked my elbows on the side of the pool and stretched my legs out behind me, my face turned away from her.
“Judy, I wish you’d look at me.”
I stayed where I was and heard her sigh.
“Look, I was just too young. I was eighteen when I married your dad and nineteen when I had you. That’s too young to be a wife and mother. I had to figure out what I wanted to be. I had to see other places. I was just too young. Don’t you get that?”
I shook my head. “Daddy was too young, too. But he stayed.”
She touched my shoulder. “Your daddy was a whole lot better at being a grown-up than I was.” She sighed. “He probably still is. And ... well, I might as well tell you, it’s just that ... I was messed up on drugs then. It didn’t seem like such a big deal at first. I mean, everyone was doing it. But ... it messed me up. It messed me up a lot.
“But I’m trying, Judy. I’m trying to be a better person. I’ve been clean for almost five years now, and I will never go back to that life. Never! I want to be a good mother to this baby. I want to make up for leaving you. I want ... so much.”
Her voice wavered, and when I looked at her, I saw tears in her eyes.
“Mama?”
“Yes, my Sweet Judy?”
“I’m sorry I made you go away last time.”
“What?”
“When I told you that you didn’t know anything and I was mean, and you left.”
“Oh, honey.” She pulled me to her in a hug. “Oh no, that wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anything you did. Don’t you ever think that, okay? I just ... I felt like I was hurting you by being here. Your friends were so mean to you and then you got upset and ... I thought it would be better for you, and for your dad, too, if I went to Karen’s. I didn’t want to cause any more chaos in your life. I didn’t want you to have to take care of me. I just wanted you to be happy. Oh, Judy, it wasn’t your fault.”
I let her hug me while I thought about that. Had she really left because she thought she was hurting me? That was something I hadn’t thought of before. I remembered how sad she looked when she heard what Carol had said.
“You know that, right?” she said finally, taking my face in her hands. “You know it’s not your fault that I left?”
“I guess so.”
“And I know you didn’t like the farm, and it was wrong of me to take you there without your dad.” She was talking faster now.
“I just felt like I had to leave Indiana, baby, to go
somewhere and be part of ... something. But I didn’t want to leave you. I couldn’t bear to leave you. That’s why I took you with me, because I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving you, of being away from you.”
Her eyes never left mine; her hands stayed on my face so that I had to look at her.
“I never wanted to leave you, Sweet Judy. And I never stopped loving you.”
Was that true? Did Mama really love me, after all?
The door to the pool area opened and a family with a bunch of little kids came in. The kids were shrieking and running and jumping in the water. It was time to leave.
Navid and Mama drove me home and Mama walked me to the door.
“Well,” she said, “tomorrow we’re going to Bloomington to see Aunt Karen and my dad. Do you want to come with us? I know they’d love to see you.”
I shook my head. Daddy and I had already made plans for Saturday. We were going to a movie and out for pizza.
“I can’t,” I said. “I’ve got stuff to do.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, then, I guess this is good-bye.”
She hugged me and held me for a long minute. We’d never actually had a good-bye before. She’d always just left.
I chewed on my lip and felt tears stinging my eyes. Just when she seemed like a real mom, talking about stuff with me like moms do, she was leaving again.
“Hey,” she said, smiling at me and touching my cheek. “This is not good-bye forever. You’re coming to California in July, right?”
I nodded. “Daddy said he’d bring me.”
“Okay, then it’s just good-bye for a couple months. And the next time you see me, you’ll be a big sister. Won’t that be fun?”
I nodded again.
“And don’t forget, Sweet Judy, not even for a minute, that I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, Mama.”
And I did. It surprised me, but I knew it was true. I loved Mama still. Knowing that she loved me, hoping that she loved me, opened some kind of door in my heart. And all the love I’d forgotten or pushed away came flooding back in.
I clung to her then, crying on her shoulder, feeling her tears on my neck.
The front door opened and Daddy appeared.
“Is everything okay?” he asked quietly.
The Sometimes Daughter Page 14