I Love You and I'm Leaving You Anyway

by Tracy McMillan

  Maybe it’s just because it’s summer, but I’m in love with Minneapolis. Compared to Los Angeles, it feels like someone turned off a very high-pitched noise machine that I didn’t even know was on. That noise is the sound of desire—for someone else, for something else, for fame, for money, for power. It’s exhausting.

  We are only here for forty-eight hours, but Sam and I are doing all the things you do when you’re a kid in Minneapolis. We’re going fishing at Lake Harriet—tying a hook to a piece of dental floss with frozen corn as bait and dangling it right off the dock. We laugh as the tiny little sunfishes nibble it. We even catch one.

  “Look, I got one!” he says, grinning. I couldn’t be happier.

  After that, Betsy and I take the kids swimming at Forty-sixth Street beach.

  “There are no waves, Mom,” Sam says while splashing in knee-high water. He’s used to the Pacific fucking Ocean, which on any day of the week has waves that will literally knock you off your feet if you’re not paying attention.

  “I know. That’s what’s great about it!” I’m hollering from a few feet away, where Betsy and I are sitting in the sand, chatting about the kids—their quirks, their strengths, their weaknesses—while we watch them play in the water.

  It’s the same beach where Betsy’s mom used to bring us when we were Sam’s age. Where Betsy’s mom sat in the sand, probably chatting with Ellie, her best friend, while we played in the water. It’s also the same beach where Scott and I used to go skinny-dipping on hot summer nights, before I went away to college and ruined everything.

  I am having the time of my life sitting on this beach.

  Later in the afternoon, Sam and I take a long leisurely walk from Minnehaha Falls (much more impressive than I remember!) to the Mississippi River. I figure this is as good a time as any to talk about the reason we’re in Minnesota: to see my dad.

  “I think you’re going to like your grandpa,” I say by way of a conversation opener. “He’s a pretty good guy.”

  The thing is, with my kid, an opener is just as often a closer, too. But this time, he’s going for it.

  “I don’t really think of him as my grandpa,” Sam says matter-of-factly.

  “Really? What do you think of him as?”

  “Your dad.”

  Damn. Sam has this way of breaking things down. Just calling it like it is. And he’s absolutely right. As far as he’s concerned, my dad is just my dad. Just a voice on the phone and a well-dressed guy in a couple of old photographs wearing a pinky ring. Once or twice my dad asked to speak with Sam, but it seemed a little bit weird to ask a kindergartener to talk to someone he’s never met in person. Besides, Sam’s not much of a phone guy.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I say. “I can see why you’d think that.”

  Sam’s known for a while now that Freddie is in prison. I told him—after much consulting with Saundra and Dan’s mother, Marie—when he was seven. I wanted to make sure Sam was old enough to process the information when he heard it. But it’s not really the kind of information anyone can make much sense of.

  Much less a little kid.

  So I change the subject to what’s right in front of us—this pretty trail leading down to the Mississippi River. We see a giant old turtle tucked into an eddy in Minnehaha Creek, and we carve our names into the sandstone outcroppings along the trail’s edge, the same ones I carved my name into as a little girl. And soon we’re at the river, the longest one in America. I forgot how beautiful it is.

  Prison will have to wait until tomorrow.

  LAST TIME WE WERE in Minnesota, Sam was only five. Visiting Freddie was never an option, because he was still in prison in Wisconsin, five hours away. Besides, five is way too young for prison.

  The visit was brief, a long weekend, for the purpose (I thought) of attending my twenty-year high school reunion. But really we came for a much more important reason.

  To say good-bye to June.

  She and Gene had long since retired to an assisted-living facility, and I phoned hoping maybe I’d be able to stop by and say hello. June had met Sam once when he was a baby, but I hadn’t been back to Minneapolis since then. Gene answered the phone.

  “Oh, Tracy, hello,” he says, like we’d just spoken last week. “June is in the hospital. But I’m sure she’d love to see you.”

  I walk into the hospital room. Carl, my Ericson brother, is standing there. It’s probably been fifteen years or more since I’ve seen him. We hug.

  “Good to see you, Tracy,” he says. He’s got that way of speaking that all ministers have—Gene has it, Dan’s dad has it, too—designed to put you at ease. “Is this your son?”

  “That’s Sam,” I say. Sam is reticent around new people, especially adults. But Carl is great with him.

  “Your mommy was just about your age when she came to live with us,” he says to Sam.

  Funny. I never thought of how Carl must have viewed that little girl in the Polly Flinders dress who walked into the house one January morning in 1969. He was in his early twenties then. He must be in his fifties now—still married to Missy, of course, and a grand father a couple of times over.

  “Come on in,” Carl says. Then he calls out to June. “Mom, Tracy’s here.”

  As we step more deeply into the room I see June, lying curled almost, in the bed. She has no hair. She is obviously nearing death. But she is still plenty lucid.

  “I didn’t know you were coming,” June says. “Or I’d have bothered to put on my wig.”

  June is still funny. Even on her deathbed.

  “It’s okay,” I say. I don’t know what’s appropriate in a situation like this. I’ve never really seen anyone this close to the end of life before.

  June calls Sam over. “Let me see you, Sammy,” she says, opening her eyes. She looks almost like a baby lying there. “Oh my. You look just like your mom. Don’t you?”

  Sam doesn’t know what to say, either. But he is surprisingly not freaked out. June has that effect on a person. She just manifests the presence of the higher thing, the all-that-there-is. God. “You know, I always say your mommy was the smartest kid I ever had.”

  I’m kind of flattered, and embarrassed, at that. I don’t really know what she means. It’s not like June’s kids were any dummies. Everyone in the family is a college grad. Several have graduate degrees. Okay, so maybe they never dismantled the sewing machine.

  “And I always say you were the best mom I ever had,” I counter. It’s true. June saved my life. Without her, I’d probably be fulfilling the socioeconomic destiny I was born into—on Section 8, with several children, some of them wards of the state. Maybe with a crack pipe.

  I certainly wouldn’t be here.

  We make a little more small talk, maybe five minutes’ worth, before it’s time to go. June is fading.

  “Good-bye,” I say, squeezing her hand. I know this is the last time I will see her, even if I can’t totally comprehend exactly what that means.

  “Sam, it’s been so lovely to meet you,” June says, in her emphatic way.

  Sam just looks at her, wide-eyed. “Bye,” he says.

  Carl and I hug good-bye. “Say hello to everyone for me,” I tell him. Even though it’s been thirty years since I left the Ericsons, they are in some ways more my family than anyone else. With them I had an experience of being part of something, of belonging somewhere, of being loved unconditionally.

  Back in the rental car I put the key into the ignition, but I can’t quite start the car. Instead, I cry. Crystal-clear tears.

  Sam sits in the backseat, strapped into the booster chair. “Why are you crying, Mom?” he asks. I don’t know that he’s ever seen me cry like that.

  I shake my head. I can’t really answer. It has something to do with the profound effect this woman has had on my life and my deep gratitude to whatever god there is for bringing me to see her one last time. That I’ve been allowed to experience this closure—despite being in such loose touch with the Ericsons over t
he years—seems like one of the more amazing gifts I’ve had in this lifetime. In fact, it seems like a miracle.

  “Is it because she was the best mom you ever had?” Sam says, nailing it.

  Yes, honey. That’s exactly why. That’s precisely, exactly why. Because June Ericson was the best mom I ever had. And because if you get June Ericson for a mom—even if it’s only for four and a half years—you are blessed. I dry my tears and smile into the rearview mirror.

  Then I start the car, knowing I am blessed.

  WITH JUNE GONE, Betsy is all I have left in Minneapolis. I’ve completely lost touch with Linda. Dianne is here, but she’s got three kids, and they’re up at their lake place for the summer. Yvonne left years ago. After I went away to college, she went back to school, too, eventually graduating and taking a job in the state of Massachusetts. She and I have lost touch, mostly, although I did see her once in 1992, and once in 1998, right before I quit drinking. Sam was just a toddler then. It was a decent visit, although the old tension was still there. We drank wine together, and that made it a little better, but maybe it’s not a coincidence that I quit drinking for good a few weeks later.

  A couple of years ago, during a process of going back into my past and setting things right, I sent her a letter. I’d wondered for years about my part in the relationship—how I had contributed to the way it was, and is—and what needed to be said between us. Finally, eight years after smoking my last joint, I figured it out.

  I needed to thank her.

  I was just a kid during the time I knew Yvonne—I was only seventeen when I left her house—and over the years I had remained in a child’s state of mind when thinking about her: focused only on how she had hurt me and never really seeing the good she had done. This was unfair and unbeneficial not just to her (or the memory of her), but also to myself. It kept me stuck, casting myself in the role of Unbeloved Daughter—the one who doesn’t get what she needs, the one who is raged-at, hurt, and abused.

  It’s easy to see how I focused on the pain and the hurt because, after all, it did hurt and it was painful. But over the years, I have become convinced that what I think and what I think about are what manifest around me. And while I can’t choose what happened, I can choose how I’m going to perceive it. It’s like changing the past, in a way, to unilaterally shift my focus from what Yvonne didn’t do to becoming grateful for all that she did. She made sure I went to one of the best high schools in Minneapolis. She put a big emphasis on college. She filled our house with books and music and taught me about the world of the arts and the life of the mind. Things that prepared me perfectly for the world I now live in.

  Setting the record straight means thanking her for that, because I never have.

  So I write her a letter saying just that. I tell her how well I am doing in life and thank her for the sacrifices she made for me and the significant part she played in making me who I am today. I include a picture of Sam and a picture of me.

  She writes me an e-mail a week later apologizing for “not being what I needed her to be.” She says she feels guilty over what happened during those years and that “not a day goes by” when she doesn’t hope for the best for me. Then she says, “Go in peace, Tracy. Go in peace.”

  Go in peace.

  I guess she’s telling me to move on without her. I feel a twinge of sadness, not because I wish that we were going to be part of each other’s lives—I don’t see a life of merry Christmases and summer vacations with Yvonne—but there’s a part of me that loves a happy ending, and as endings go, this one isn’t happy. It’s just okay.

  But a little time passes, and I notice that when Yvonne comes into my mind, I feel peace. Peace is good. Peace is all I’ve ever really wanted.

  So, on second thought, an okay ending will do just fine.

  PRISON CAMP IS REALLY RELAXED. It feels less like a place of punishment than it does, say, a Department of Motor Vehicles office. Except half the people are wearing prison uniforms. Other than that, the basic protocol remains the same as in federal prison 101.

  My heart trembles a bit as we approach the guard. He’s a clean-shaven, crew-cutted guy in his midtwenties who probably came from some small town up north and now finds himself checking the IDs of people who love people who commit crimes.

  “Long way,” he says, looking at my California driver’s license. They probably don’t get a lot of Angelenos in this place. As I slip off the little cotton sweater I have on over my white sleeveless top, he adds, “You’re going to need to leave that on, ma’am.”

  “Huh?” I don’t know what he’s talking about. And I never fail to find it jarring when people call me “ma’am.” When did I become old?

  “Your sweater,” he says, with a slightly apologetic tone. “Those are the rules.”

  I have forgotten that there is a dress code in prison—no tank tops, shorts, sleeveless shirts, or other clothing that might bring about too much sexy thinking. “No problem,” I say. “Thanks.”

  Sam looks around, slightly wide-eyed. So this is prison, his expression seems to say. My kid is the silent type, so you’re never quite sure what he’s thinking, and it’s not like you can grab him by the shoulders and ask, “What are you thinking about this whole prison thing?!” (Though if I thought it would yield an answer, I might.) Being Sam’s mom has taught me to quiet down and know things in a whole new, unspoken language.

  After signing in, we are told to take a seat. “It’ll be a few minutes before we can get him down here,” the guard says. “Sit wherever you want.”

  The room is large and light and half-filled with the usual customers: inmates, kids, and women with low self-esteem. Everything is just like I remember it—I feel right at home.

  Sam and I take a seat and wait. After about ten minutes, a gray-haired, bearded man walks toward us. He seems to know who I am. Is that him? That’s him! He has a jolly expression that I recognize, though his teeth are different than I remember. Maybe that’s because Uncle Sam bought him a new set. Freddie laughs his old familiar chortle as we move in for the hug.

  “Hiiiiiii!” I say, a little flummoxed at how excited I actually am to see him.

  “Aw, look at my little gyurl. All growed up!” He pushes me out a foot or two, getting a better look. “You look good!” He sounds surprised. “And who’s this?!”

  He pulls Sam toward him, into a large but not too overwhelming hug. “My grandson! Oh, my. You’ve gotten so big.” Normally I would be thinking sarcastic thoughts, like That’s what happens in eleven years, but the look on Freddie’s face—pleased as punch—is warming my heart. “Well, you are a good-lookin’ son of a gun,” Freddie says. “A real Mack-Millan. And look at your hair!”

  It’s true; Sam has an amazing head of hair. He’s also looking quite dapper in a pair of plaid Bermuda shorts, a green polo shirt, and brown Converse high-tops. Sam doesn’t really have to try to look cute in an outfit. He just does. I guess in that way he really is a chip off my dad’s old block.

  “How are you, son?” My dad draws out the word “son,” putting a hint of street spin on it.

  “Fine.” Sam looks up at my dad with a completely open, sweet, innocent face. It takes me a second to figure out who else I’ve seen him regard like this—then it hits me. Dan’s parents! I’m stunned. It’s like Sam knows he is related to this man, Freddie, and he already loves him. I wasn’t expecting that at all.

  “Oh, yeah?” My dad is beaming back. “You’re fine?”

  Sam smiles. He knows my dad is teasing him a little. “Yeah.”

  My dad smoothes the collar on Sam’s polo shirt. “Here, son, let me fix that for you.” Sam dutifully stands still while my dad presses the collar between his thumb and index finger into the perfect position. I kind of liked the collar popped, but who cares? I’m watching my personal history unfold here.

  I stand there, just trying to process it all. Except for that one time when Sam was a baby, I’ve never been in a room with my dad and my son. Two generations of
my family.

  New feeling alert!

  I never guessed coming here would be this strange form of déjà vu, where my dad is watching my son, and I am watching my dad, and I can see that the way my dad feels about Sam is the way I feel about Sam, which is also the way my dad feels about me.

  It’s like together we are one of those medical books where when you lay each page over the next, you get a picture of one whole body, with all of the insides. Me, my dad, my son—we’re all one. The same person, just kind of split into three bodies. This is awesome, literally, because I’ve spent a lifetime feeling separated from everyone else—I never really felt like part of anybody else’s picture. I can suddenly see how people who have mothers they know, and sisters they know, and grandmas and grandpas they know—they don’t feel like a heart without a lung.

  I’d say it’s too bad all this is taking place in a federal prison, but it’s so amazing, I don’t even care.

  THIS TIME MY DAD thinks I’m too skinny. At first he just hints at it. “You’re so skinny,” he says.

  We’re standing in front of the vending machines, trying to decide between the Quarter-Pound Charbroil Burger and the Chili-Cheese Dogs. Actually, my dad is trying to decide. My mind is already made up: I’m getting the hamburger. I have a weird fetish for textured vegetable protein, the kind they sneak into vending machine hamburgers to squeeze another four cents of profit out of each patty. I think it tastes good. “I noticed you were looking thin in the pictures you sent,” he continues. “But now I see you in person and…”

  Of course, I’m delighted he thinks I’m skinny. Too thin (especially since I’m definitely not) is what’s known as a “quality problem” in my world. But I pretend to protest anyway.

  “You should have seen me before. I used to weigh twenty pounds less than I do now,” I counter. “This isn’t even skinny. Guys in California like their women hungry.”