by Anita Higman
“I could suddenly see the woman’s eyes more clearly now. You’ll like this part, Jenny. Dragan’s eyes were like pale marbles. But one orb appeared slightly different from the other.”
Jenny leaned into the aisle. “Oww, that’s pretty creepy. Keep going.”
“Yeah, well, it made me uneasy trying to figure out the colors and which eye to look at. Finally, I just asked the woman, ‘Is my mother at home?’”
“She’s in the study.” Dragan paused and then opened the door wider.
I stepped inside. “So, are you my mother’s housekeeper?”
“Yes and no.” Dragan closed the door behind us. “Your mother and I have a special arrangement.” She placed her palms together, prayer-like. “I know how unorthodox this might sound, but Mrs. Gray pays me to be her friend.”
Normally I would have laughed at such a bizarre comment, but being in my mother’s house kept my bursts of emotion in check. “Oh? I see.” Most normal people wouldn’t be able to imagine hiring a stranger to be one’s friend—and yet in my mother’s case it was plausible. She’d always needed a friend more than a daughter.
Dragan seemed to study me for a reaction.
I smiled convincingly and trudged behind her toward the study. A trace of alcohol swirled in her wake, and when she glanced back at me, I saw the tapering of her eyelids.
Our footsteps clacked and flopped across the marble floor, making strange echoing rhythms through the entry. Even though I’d grown up in the house, I’d only visited the study occasionally. It had been my mother’s sanctuary, a place off-limits to animals and children. A place she retreated to when she could no longer tolerate the world. Or me. But perhaps my mother had softened over the years and the tendrils of compassion had attached themselves to her heart.
Dragan opened the door to the study and then, with the cadence of crisp snaps, she flip-flopped away down the hall. I tiptoed through the doorway, and all my good intentions threatened to scamper away like scared little mice.
I paused to get my bearings. The study looked the same—paneled walls accented with wainscoting, shelves of books, and an eclectic array of French Provincial furnishings. The afternoon light made phantoms on the walls, and like an enchantment, a grim and lonely feel still shadowed the place. Musty odors completed the overall anti-festive ambiance. I swallowed a chuckle and then hesitated mid-stride like characters do in cartoons, knowing that my mother’s disposition was as stagnant as her surroundings.
“I could hear your whispers through the vents … you and Mrs. Humphreys,” my mother said from behind one of the high-back chairs.
Her face was hidden from view, but the voice belonged to my mother. It was raspier than I’d remembered, but the brusque tenor sounded the same as a decade before. Suddenly my bones felt incapable of holding me up. I sensed it then—our meeting would be a farce, but without the comedy.
“What are you doing back there? Come here. I want to have a look at you,” came the voice.
I walked over to the chair opposite from my mother and sat down. I looked at my hands; they’d taken on a life of their own, strangling each other until they throbbed. “Hi, Mother. It’s been a long time.”
“Let’s see you. Your complexion has improved, and your long hair isn’t so straggly. But you’re still thin and pale. But of course, all that dark clothing you’re wearing makes the pallor more pronounced. In fact, you look ill. My doctors say I have a weakened immune system, so if you think—”
“I’m not sick.” I looked up at her. Mother’s eyes had faded some, but they were still as intense as ever. Streaks of iron gray ran through her dark hair, so many, in fact, that it was hard to know which color was more dominant, but the whole bundle was drawn up into a painful-looking bun. Her nose appeared more angled, and with her piercing stare, the whole effect was one of a fearsome eagle studying its prey.
My body shriveled like dried fruit in the hot sun. I felt desperate, almost reckless in my hopes for a chance to reconnect with my mother. I huddled down onto the chair, gripped the cushions, and waited for the judge’s decree.
“I’ve been expecting you.” My mother lifted a tiny glass of clear liquid—most likely schnapps—to her lips.
“You have?” I smiled, glad for any sign of goodwill.
Her eye twitched. “Well, let me see if I can guess why you’ve come. Your daughter has gone off to college, and you’re feeling useless. Empty nest is eating at you. And so you thought you’d visit your old mother. See if we couldn’t be pals.”
Mother either talked in riddles or cut to the chase. “Yes, some of that is true, but I hoped—”
“I heard about your husband’s death a year ago. My gout kept me from the funeral. But I’m sure I wasn’t missed.”
“Of course you were missed.”
“Bah. If you’re going to lie, girl, learn to do it with style or not bother.” She took another sip from her glass.
Talking my mother out of one of her certainties was as easy as getting an amendment to the Constitution. So I let it go.
“Tell me again … your husband … what did he die of?”
“Richard died of a heart attack.”
Mother tucked the corners of her dress under her legs and then smoothed the fabric, which looked a lot like wall tapestry. “Hmm. You should have fed him a healthier diet. Less junk food … more prunes.”
A wall clock chimed, and I jumped.
“So, now that your daughter has gone away, and your spouse is dead, what are you going to do with your life? You’re thirty-nine years old, alone, with no promising future. You probably still live in that shabby little house your husband left you.” Mother shook her head. “You never did use your expensive education for a real career. You just wanted to marry and have a child.”
I sighed. “I don’t know what God has planned for me. Not yet anyway.”
“Bah. Leave God out of this. You’re old enough to make your own plans.” She set her glass down and pulled her afghan up over her knees.
I tried to batten down the hatches of my emotions, but I’d been born too flimsy to stand up to my mother’s hurricane-force blows. I could no longer look at my mother, so I stared out the window into the solarium. A wooden table sat in the center of the glassed-in room, covered with botany journals, microscopes, and sketches of flower parts. There would also be small instruments of torture, for dissecting. With all her multiple gardens, no flowers were ever displayed in the house for their beauty. “Have you made any new discoveries with your flowers?”
“You mean angiosperms. No, nothing new there, but I did recently purchase a night-blooming Cereus cactus. Amazing specimen. It blooms just once a year, you know, and if you miss your one chance … well, now that would be a real loss. Wouldn’t it?”
Irony had more weight than I could carry. My mother’s worship of flowers was never-ending, probably because they had no hearts. No sins to number. Or remember. I fingered my charm bracelet to remind me that life outside her walls was still good—that the sun still rose in the morning and my darling daughter, Julie, still loved me.
“I see you fidgeting with some trinket on your wrist. What is it?”
“Julie gave me this bracelet when she left for college recently. Each of the tiny silver charms represents our favorite things, like her rollerblading or my reading. And—”
“Yes, well, I’m sure.” My mother gave a one-finger pat, pat, pat on the chair, which was meant to silence me as if I were her trained poodle. I’d never forgotten that gesture. My heart constricted, no longer wanting to beat, but it kept on pounding just the same.
“Well, let’s have a look at it.” She motioned to my wrist. “The bauble.”
I removed the bracelet, handed it to my mother, and immediately started picking at my fingers, a habit I must have started in the cradle.
The hinges on the study door creaked, and I glanced back. The door was ajar, but perhaps I’d left it that way. Or was Dragan eavesdropping just outside the door? Hmm. I turn
ed my attention back to my mother.
She put on her reading glasses and rolled the bracelet around in her hand. “So, little Julie’s all grown up.”
Was this the moment I’d waited for? I gave myself the luxury of hope. “Julie plays the guitar and the piano, and she sings like an angel in church. She’s grown up so beautiful and wise and funny too. She’s getting a music degree at Sam Houston State University, so she’s about an hour drive from Houston. I miss her, even though she’s not that far away. Mother, you would love her. Maybe I could have her come visit you. Julie has missed having a grandmother in her life. She needs you. We both need you and love you and—”
“I don’t think so.” My mother closed her hand around the jewelry.
“I would like for you to keep the bracelet as a gift.” I hadn’t planned on giving away my greatest earthly treasure, but I really did want my mother’s love—her understanding. Her “knowing” of me and my Julie. Life seemed to be an unfinished puzzle without it.
My mother clutched the bracelet to her heart as if she’d just found a misplaced heirloom, and then she set it on the coffee table between us. “Please take it back. We both know that the bracelet comes with strings. You want me to have a relationship with your daughter.”
“But she’s your granddaughter. Doesn’t it feel unnatural not to be a part of her life?” Not to be a part of my life? What would it take for her to see me, love me? How long could I survive such an onslaught of rejection? Guess that was one of the reasons I’d disappeared from her life for so long.
“What are you insinuating? That I’m heartless?” My mother raised an eyebrow. “So, is this the real reason you came today? To call me names?”
The anticipation of good things faded. “I meant well.” Some people loved the theater, but Mother didn’t. She hated displays of emotion, which were sentiments for the meek in spirit she’d say—fools who had no business inheriting the earth.
“I don’t appreciate your gift. You should have brought me some more schnapps instead. It has such purifying qualities.”
I retrieved the bracelet and ground my nails into my palms, trying not to cry. It was no use, though. Tears splashed onto my lashes anyway.
“Are you trying to manipulate me with your tears?” I didn’t answer her. What was the point? I instead walked over to the large window that overlooked my mother’s solarium. Then I placed my palm on the pane, letting the warmth from the glass seep into my skin. I left my hand there. I didn’t know why exactly. It was a windowpane ritual I’d performed my whole life as if I’d wanted to connect with something but didn’t know what it was.
“Sit down.” Her tone became a hiss.
If I returned to my seat I was bound to dislike myself for a long time to come. Nevertheless, I surrendered to the force—my mother—and sat on my trembling hands.
“You, Lily, are just like your father … an unpredictable ocean. No matter how calm the water is on the surface, the waves come to shore full of bluster and drama. And to tell you the truth, I’ve never felt at peace near the ocean.”
“I see.” I caught her meaning, and I felt my insides curdle like sour milk. I was officially mutating into a child again. “I know I didn’t turn out to be the daughter you hoped for, but why do you hate me so much?”
“Hate? Why do you always have to pick the most potent spice in the rack when a little salt will do? That is so Lily. What do they call it these days? A drama queen.” Then she closed her eyes—something my mother always did to be rid of me. “And … you still look just like her,” she said in the barest whisper. “Just like her.”
“I look like whom, Mother?” Who could she mean? Whoever it was, the person seemed important.
And then I noticed something just below my right hand—a small decorative glass dome sitting on the table. Just under the clear glass were two seeds. Nothing more. So tiny. Were they mustard seeds? How peculiar. Would the mysteries never end? I touched the dome and then pulled back. My thumbprint remained on the surface of the glass. Is that all I would leave in this house? God help me. If there wasn’t going to be any affection between us, maybe there could be a connection, no matter how small. I would try again, for Julie’s sake. “I look like whom, Mother?”
Mother’s eyes drifted open. “Her name is Camille Violet Daniels.”
“Is she the woman I look like? Who is she? Is she still alive?”
My mother slumped in her chair, the color draining from her face. “Yes, she’s still alive.”
“What’s the matter?” I leaned forward, thinking I might need to call 911.
“Maybe it’s time.” A bit of drool dribbled out of the corner of my mother’s mouth, and she daubed at it with her hand. She gazed off into the solarium still murmuring, “Maybe it is time.” She gripped the arm of her chair until her knuckles went ashen. “I’ll answer your question. Camille Violet Daniels is your identical twin. She is your sister.”
“My sister. An identical twin? Is it true? How could it be?”
“It’s true.”
The moment turned fantastical as if I were Alice, falling down the rabbit hole. “But why don’t I remember her?”
Mother took on a faraway gaze, but then suddenly her attention snapped back to the room. “Because you were only one year old at the time when she was taken from me.”
“Taken? But who would do such a thing? Where is she?”
Mother closed her hand around the doily on the armrest and pulverized it in her knotted fingers. “That is one of the reasons I never told you. I feared this infernal avalanche of questions.”
I tried to compose myself. If I wanted to know more I’d need to proceed with caution. To upset Mother now meant severing any chance of knowing how to find my sister. So, her name was Camille Violet. How beautiful. She’d been given a floral name too. And perhaps she’d gotten married, since her last name was Daniels. I thought of all the nieces and nephews and how Julie would love to have cousins. Perhaps they all lived nearby. “If I have a sister who’s still alive I want to meet her.” I would want to know her, welcome her back to the family.
“I doubt there’s any chance of finding her.” Mother drank the last of her schnapps but continued to hold the empty glass as if it were full. “Camille lives in Melbourne, Australia.”
Australia? “How did she end up so far away? Are you sure?”
“I received a card from her six months ago. There was no return address, but in her brief note she mentioned her name, the country and city where she lived, and the news that she was well. She also mentioned that she attends St. Paul’s Cathedral. So apparently she’s wrapped up in the same spiritual nonsense you are.”
Australia. The word echoed in my mind. Then a distressing dimension adhered to the first. In order for me to find my sister, I’d have to fly—something I feared. I’d barely traveled out of Houston while Julie was growing up, and certainly hadn’t flown to the other side of the earth. Camille might as well live on the moon. How would I ever be able to meet her?
“All right. You know the truth.” Mother squeezed her eyes shut again, but this time a small amount of moisture escaped the corner of her eye. There was so much about Mother I still didn’t know. She remained the island, and I the tiny boat, ever circling, but never finding an inlet.
“But you haven’t told me the reason she lives so far away.”
Her eyes blinked open. “I said that is all.” She reached for her crystal bell and gave it a jangle. “Dragan will see you to the door.”
“But don’t you care that I need to know—”
“Is cuma liom!” she said.
I wasn’t sure what it meant, but Mother always broke into Gaelic when she really got her Irish dander up. And that was it; the audience with my mother came to a halt. I rose from the chair, knowing that no temptation, no enticement would ever get her to change her mind, so I was left holding what she called my infernal avalanche of questions. I had a sister, a twin, and if anyone were going to find her it’d have
to be me.
“Goodbye, Mother.” I stepped out of the room with what crumbs of dignity I had left.
Dragan didn’t show me to the door, but then I hadn’t expected her to.
Questions flowed like rain on a dry riverbed. Why had I been separated from my sister? And why was it a secret? Why were we denied the chance to grow up together? Having an identical twin sister to play with, a bosom friend, would have been amazing fun. Even being teased about wearing the same clothes and knowing that people would constantly get us confused sounded like delight. No doubt a thousand whys were going to plague me, and yet just to know I had a sister, an identical twin, made me feel completed in some way. Whole and connected.
I shut the front door and breathed in the air, so light and clean, so unlike the oppressive atmosphere inside the Gray mansion. I always became a different person inside her house, all my wit and courage dissolving as if dipped in a vial of toxic fluids—the kind my mother used in her Frankenstein-esque floral experiments. Except for when Julie was little, she hadn’t seen me under the influence of my Mother. Perhaps she would have thought I’d disgraced myself with excessive groveling.
I headed to my car with a lilt in my step and a vow in my heart that even if the quest to find my sister took me to the other side of the world, I would find what my mother had hidden from me all these decades.
Yes, I would find Camille Violet Daniels, even if it were the last thing on earth I did!
“And so, Jenny, that’s how I came to be sitting in this seat and flying on this plane all around the world.” I flopped back in my seat, exhausted from the remembering and the telling of it all. I looked over at her little face, wondering what profound words she would cook up this time. Jenny yawned. “Wow, your mom is kind of weird.”
I chuckled.
“Your story is sad-happy like having to eat broccoli before you can get to the chocolate pudding.”