Like everyone, I was subject to mood changes, and on another day I might tell myself that I had too much junk and needed a yard sale in the worst way. That was because I hated to polish silver, to starch linens, and to dust everything that needed dusting. Maybe I would give some things to my sons. Someday. When they remembered how to be nice to their mother.
I peeked out of the window and watched Liz’s movers struggle under the weight of her king-size mattress. It was curious that a single girl in the city would want such a large bed when every square inch of living space came at such a premium. Maybe she liked to toss and turn. It was a little sad that everything that Liz owned was in one orange and white U-Haul. If I ever moved I’d need a convoy of eighteen-wheelers. I laughed at the thought of them roaring down a highway to somewhere. But, as you know, I had no intention of ever moving. Where? Florida? Never. Where then? Nowhere. I was leaving horizontally in a permanent, breathless recline.
People came and went, bringing in boxes and pieces of furniture. The racket overhead was almost intolerable. Kevin must have been up there with her by then.
I said, “Harry? Do you hear all that noise? Shhh! Right? Can you say ‘shhh’?”
Angel that he was, Harry said, “Shhh!” And then gave a wolf whistle. Maybe he had already sneaked a peak at Miss Liz.
“Let’s call Miss Josie, shall we?”
Harry gave me a look and I dialed Mother’s number. She had changed her recording on her answering machine.
We mean this in the nicest possible way. If you are selling something, there is no point in leaving a message because your call will not be returned. We are not kidding. Have a nice day and please wait for the tone. Thank you.
Well, it was considerably better than the other one, but it was still somehow impolite.
“Mother? Hi, it’s Miriam. Just wanted to chat. Call me when you have a moment, okay?”
I hung up and looked at the phone, feeling lonely for her company. A visit to Sullivans Island was long overdue. The Land of Mango Sunsets. I craved it.
How mysterious and dreamy the Lowcountry was in the winter! For as hot and sultry as it was in the summer, the wet rolling fogs of January and February covered the islands in thick mist so dense you could imagine ghosts slipping in and out of it, whispering their histories in your ear.
When I was a young girl, we would have family gatherings at our Sullivans Island beach home all summer long, but it was the winter ones I loved most. The house was uninsulated and sometimes it was so cold indoors you could see your breath. I couldn’t recall ever being bothered by the cold then, but I remembered the older people complaining and someone would always say, well then, why don’t you put on a sweater? In those days you didn’t demand the perfect temperature, you ate leftovers—another incarnation of yesterday’s dinner and indication that the world was a perfectly wonderful place. After an early supper of maybe black-eyed peas over rice and a thick slice of baked ham, fried with canned pineapple, my grandmother would take the binoculars and go out on the back porch that faced the marsh. She would sit in her favorite ancient wicker rocking chair to watch the birds and the sunset. In retrospect, I imagine what she had been truly seeking was a little well-earned peace and quiet. She could have had it, that is, until I showed up. I would crawl all over her and beg for a story.
“Let’s settle down, sweetheart,” she would say.
Once I stopped wiggling, my grandmother would tuck me in against her side with an old afghan to block the chilly air of the evening. I would snuggle and relive the same tales her mother had told her long ago. Her voice was so soothing and musical, and most of all, the stories she told were fantastic.
I would close my eyes and be transported to the Isle of Palms as it was hundreds of years ago. Native American women from the Seewee tribe were cooking venison over an open fire or whole fish on bamboo skewers. I could almost hear their babies gurgling and laughing, hanging from tree limbs, tightly and lovingly laced in their deerskin cradle boards. The women would suspend them from a branch while they performed whatever chore was at hand—gathering berries or firewood. My grandmother would get to the part of the story where she talked about the ingenious opening in the bottom of the cradle boards that allowed the baby’s natural business to drop to the ground without the baby being soiled. I would dissolve in a fit of snickers and she would narrow her eyes at me in mock horror that made me giggle even more. Like most children of my day, I thought talking about babies swinging from trees and watering the ground was very naughty business.
In later years, my mother had told the same stories and others to my sons—stories of black bears lumbering through the shallow waters looking for fish, of the shining eyes of wild jaguars that would eat you alive, and of drunken pirates, their crazed gunfights and buried treasure. Those tales gave the boys nightmares. But then she would tell of the adventures of soldiers and their bravery and of Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote “The Gold Bug” when he was stationed at Fort Moultrie. Those yarns gave the boys imaginary games to play for hours on end.
In the summers, my sons would run shirtless and free all over the island, climbing the forts and picking wild blackberries. They would arrive home filthy, knees skinned, faces freckled and sunburned. I would swear to this day that the light of their exuberant smiles actually brightened all the rooms. Of course, I would march them straight to a good scrub. After baths, I would make thick tomato sandwiches slathered with my mother’s homemade mayonnaise because it was just too hot to eat anything else. They would swing together in the same old Pawleys Island hammock that had hung on our porch forever until the lightning bugs came out and then they would run around to catch them.
Those were magical days when we were all together, our eyes so filled with one another. Every wonder of nature was right before us and history was never more alive. And we were happy. I missed the days when my sons were little boys and they looked up to me. And I longed to take my grandchildren to Sullivans Island to tell them the stories, but Dan and Nan had no interest or time to fly across country for something so frivolous. Or they claimed to be impossibly busy and booked up.
But that wasn’t the truth. We all knew it.
Oh, I had been a very foolish woman to tell my boys they had to choose between their father and me. They had never really declared a choice but had drifted away from both of us, never understanding why I had drawn a line in the sand in the first place. I thought they should come to my defense and try to talk some sense into their father’s head. Could they have saved my marriage? Now I think not, but at that time I resented that they would not try. I was so deeply and pathetically desperate then to hold everything in place, for our lives to return to their orbit, and for Judith to disappear. Along with the two illegitimate children of hers that my husband had fathered.
I never should have let the duplicity and the immoral philandering of any man, even their father, come between us. But it had. I couldn’t stop it. I harangued them mercilessly to tell their father how wrong he was, that I was a wonderful spouse and how could he do this to us? Once the cat and the kitties of Charles’s other family were out of the bag, there was no stopping the bad news. Charles simply moved out and I was left alone with my town house and very little cash.
You know how you always hope that when life gives you a great challenge you’ll be noble and wise and do the right thing? That you’ll conduct yourself in ways that won’t embarrass anyone? That you won’t be an emotional albatross? Well, I was flat-out robbed of the opportunities to be noble or to be a raving lunatic.
Charlie, my oldest, was already in medical school, studying twenty-seven hours a day, and Dan was in California married to Nan. The only good thing about my behavior then was that at least I had maintained enough dignity to wallow in the privacy of my bedroom. But I cried enough tears to refill Lake Superior, which is what I thought I was.
Charlie had helped the most. He was the one who found the contractor to convert the town house into apartments. I turned my space int
o a small three-bedroom apartment in case the boys ever came back for a visit. It was a useless conciliatory act but my way of demonstrating contrition. Soon after, Charlie moved himself to Harlem and immersed himself in his studies, which he had to do if he was going to be a pediatric surgeon someday. Did I say that he thought I disapproved of his live-in girlfriend? Well, it wasn’t because she was Jamaican. Really. It wasn’t. It was because she had the worst personality I had ever encountered. Yes, she was studying to be a pediatrician, so obviously she wasn’t a dummy. It was just that every time we had lunch or dinner I felt like I was going to fall asleep in my plate. I wasn’t the only boring woman on the earth, you know. And okay. To be perfectly honest? I did think there were too many cultural differences for me to ever be comfortable with her. I knew I owed Charlie a phone call. Admittedly, I was avoiding him because the last time we spoke it had not gone well.
I had invited him to dinner on the spur of the moment and he said, “Is this invitation for me alone?”
That was all he had to say and I knew we were heading down a dark path.
“Well, Charlie, sometimes I just like to get caught up with my son and discuss family matters.”
“Matters not intended for outsiders, right?”
“Yes. Is that so terrible?”
“Mom? Priscilla and I have been living together for two years. Get used to it. She’s family.”
“These days playing house seems to be acceptable to the world, according to your father, at least.”
“Playing house? Hmmph.”
“Oh?” That’s nice. Thanks for the compliment.
“Anyway, Priscilla and I have plans for dinner tonight. Maybe some other time.”
“Well, dear? If you’d rather eat jerk chicken, that doesn’t make you a jerk.”
It did not result in a chuckle and a promise of another date. He hung up on me.
There you have the picture of my failure with Charlie and as a standup comedian, his general attitude of frosty nonchalance, and a sketch of the geographic location of my other son, about whom there just isn’t much to say. It seemed like the world always worked against our relationships and any return to affection.
I knew it was well within my skills to exert some effort toward breaking down the walls between the boys and me. But I was too proud and so very hurt. When I thought about calling them, I would preconclude that it was too late. The damage was done.
When thoughts of my loneliness skidded to the forefront of my disappointment, that was when I missed my mother the most. I didn’t want her to tell me where I had gone wrong, though. No. I wanted her to tell me that I had been right. But she would never say I was. I would go to the end of my days trying to please my mother and never somehow hit the mark. The root of the problem was my own stubbornness. I knew it and I hated myself for it. She told me I had unrealistic expectations of everyone. I disagreed. It seemed to me that I never asked for more than I gave.
I dialed her number again. This time she answered.
“Mother?”
“Hello, Miriam. I was just going to call you back. I have been one very busy bee today. Law! It is so gorgeous here! Not a cloud in the sky!”
“Well, that’s wonderful! It’s still dreary as the tomb here.”
“I know. I saw your weather report on some morning show while I was having my morning tea. You know, you should really come—”
“And that’s one reason I’m calling, actually. I want to try and get out of here for a few days.”
“Come tomorrow!”
“Oh, sure! I just wanted to know if you’re going to be around for the next few weeks.”
“Unless I drop dead, I’ll be right here.”
My mother wasn’t even close to dropping dead. With all the vitamins she took and all the organic food she ate? She was guaranteed to rival any celebrity from the Old Testament.
“Okay, I’ll start looking for a good airfare. So, what’s keeping you so busy?”
“Saving the planet.”
“Somebody’s got to.”
“Well, I got involved in a project to make disposable, biodegradable plates and so forth from potato starch. You just throw them in the compost heap and in six months they’re fertilizer.”
“Well. How about that?”
“Don’t be Miss Blasé Big City with me, Miriam Elizabeth Swanson.”
“Sorry. I still have problems envisioning you eating from paper plates—”
“Potato starch…”
“Whatever. Anyway, here’s news. I have a new tenant. A gal from Birmingham. Liz Harper. Very nice.”
“Lawsamercy, Miriam! What are you doing up there in Yankee land—running an ashram for wayward southerners? You’ve got that Kevin fellow from Atlanta and now…”
I smiled at Miss Josie’s joke and in the next breath realized that my mother was in excellent humor nearly all the time. In fact, I couldn’t recall the last time she had been in a foul mood. When I was a child she spent every bit of energy she had to spare giving me lessons in polite behavior and in the art of appearing happy.
“How do you do it, Miss Josie?”
“What’s that, darlin’?”
“Stay so upbeat.”
“Me?” She paused for a moment. “Is this a serious question?”
“Dead serious. Only because I’ve been on such a downer lately…”
“Is this about Charles?”
“No.” Yes.
“Judith?”
“No.” Yes.
“The boys?”
“Not really. I’m just a little melancholy, you know? I think all this dismal weather is at the bottom of it and I just miss…Oh, I don’t know what I miss.”
“Hmmph. Child? You’ve got yourself a case of SAD.”
“You’re telling me?”
“No, sweetheart—I mean, seasonal affective disorder.”
“Oh. That. Probably so.”
“Well, let’s start by changing all the lightbulbs in your house to full-spectrum lightbulbs. They’ll suppress your brain’s secretion of melatonin.”
“Wait. I have to get something to write with.” I rummaged through the kitchen drawer and found a ballpoint pen that actually worked after tossing aside four that refused to cooperate. “Hang on. Okay. Gosh, I have to clean out this drawer. Okay, full what?”
“Spectrum. You need me to come organize you. And get yourself outdoors for a walk every day. There was a study that showed an hour’s walk during the winter in sunlight was as effective as two and a half hours under bright artificial lights.”
“An hour? Forget it! Besides, I’d break my neck on all the ice!”
“Then call Delta or Continental, come see your mother, and I’ll take you for a walk on the Sullivans Island beach every day! And, you’re probably not feeding yourself correctly either…”
“But I am wearing a sweater.”
Silence from the south.
“That was a joke, Mother.”
“Of course it was. I knew that. Old as the hills, but a joke nonetheless.”
I sighed hard. I wasn’t that humorless, was I? “I’ll book a flight, buy the lightbulbs, and I’ll call you back.”
“Good. The sooner the better. I’ll get you all straightened out—”
“Bye, Mother. Thanks, okay?”
We hung up and I thought it pleased her to think that I needed her. The fact of the matter was that I did need her. I hadn’t felt so unloved and misunderstood in quite a while. What was the matter with me?
I watched a documentary on dolphins that bored me into a stupor. I changed the sheets on my bed, sponge-wiped the bathroom counters, and changed the towels. The sounds of my washer and dryer made me feel slightly better. Finally, it was cocktail time, and before I could pour a measure of the Famous Grouse into a tumbler, my doorbell rang. I opened the door and there stood Kevin with a telltale sack of Chinese take-out food.
“Want to indulge in a little Who Flung Dung?”
“Got hot-and-sour?�
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“You know it, Petal Puss.”
“Come right in.” I stood aside, and Kevin all but ran past me to the kitchen.
“I’m freezing,” he said. “It must be twenty thousand degrees below zero out there. Brrrr!” He dropped the bag on the kitchen table and took off his gloves, hat, neck scarf, and coat. Next, he turned on the gas of one of my cooktop burners and warmed his hands, rubbing them together. “I couldn’t ask them to deliver? I had to go fetch it myself?”
“Starving?” I unpacked the food and opened the foil container of egg rolls. “Here.” I handed him one on a paper napkin. “Regain your strength.”
“You know me. I spent all afternoon upstairs with Daisy Mae and she didn’t even throw me a cracker! I wait until my blood sugar drops to nothing because I’m too OCD to quit styling, so I wind up tearing down Third Avenue like a convulsing maniac…”
I put two plates and bowls on the table with flatware. “Oh! She probably doesn’t have a thing to eat either. Should we invite…”
“Ha! Our Liz has a date! Don’t worry about this one, honey. She’s an operator. She went out already.”
I opened a bottle of red wine and poured out two glasses, offering one to Kevin.
“What’s her stuff like?”
“You wouldn’t live with that junk for five minutes.”
“Really? Well, she’s young.” We clinked to yet another new conspiracy and sat down to serve ourselves a hasty meal. “Tell me everything.”
The Land of Mango Sunsets Page 5