by A. R. Hadley
Cal sat with his mother after dinner, reading a book aloud. The sound of his voice was a touchstone to her silence. On this particular December evening, though, he was restless. Bones and joints rumbling, seeming to want to break out of his skin.
Nothing was agreeable or still. Even his mind wandered as he read … drifting to the ocean.
He was reading about a young boy and his summer, but inside he was reflecting on a different boy, a man, and his winter. Cal had braved the cooler waters several times on his surfboard over the last month or so. It had taken practice and strength to get up and stay up on it and not fall off. Thank God he was a runner, but he’d still used muscles that had apparently gone dormant. It had all been worth it.
Just like Annie had said.
The ride, the waves, the water — it had all given him a contentment nothing else could’ve.
Peace seemed elusive tonight. It was near impossible for him to concentrate on the words or the meaning of anything he read. He would stop and reread paragraphs in his head. The sound of his own voice mesmerized him.
He was done trying to escape through the words. In the middle of a passage, he abruptly shut the book and stood.
He set the old Bradbury novel on the nightstand and looked at his mother a moment at where she sat on the bed. Then he turned around and stepped toward her dresser, removed his glasses, and stared at his reflection.
Who was the man in the mirror?
He didn't recognize himself: haggard eyes, dark circles under them, age lines, a beard. Hmm. Scratching his jaw, he turned his head side to side, inspecting the length of his hair and the situation on his face. Not since college had it been longer than any “respectable man's” hair should be. For the last forty-five years, Constance had surely impressed upon him the importance of being “respectable.”
Mom would hate it.
That thought alone filled him with hope.
He glanced at her again — the owl, the hawk — and then looked back at the worn dresser. It was her personal dresser after all. Wasn't it? He’d almost forgotten what it looked like. Walnut wood with batwing handles. Long and rectangular. It was the only thing in the room that had come from her original bedroom. The space she’d given up when walking up the stairs had proven to be too difficult.
Cal began to open the drawers one by one — what the fuck was inside them? — unable to stop himself from prying. She’d kept certain things from him all his life. Maybe he would find something of interest. Something besides clothes? Secrets? If nothing else, he hoped it would put an end to the restlessness.
He ran his fingers over her clothing, lifting up each piece and looking between them. God, her whole life seemed to be confined to the fucking guest room. Nothing personal. Nothing individual. Nothing screaming, “I am Constance Prescott!” — until Cal opened the bottom drawer.
At first glance, it looked like all the others, just clothing, but lo and behold, peeking out from beneath the underwear, was something different, something that didn’t belong. Or it did. Why did women like to hide things inside their underwear?
In this case, he’d happened upon a manila envelope.
After picking it up, he stood tall, then undid the metal clasp and looked inside.
Photographs.
A thick stack of them.
She’d never made picture albums or hoarded personal mementos. So, what made these special?
He fixed his gaze on his mother’s reflection in the mirror. She’d lost the ability to recognize a loved one in a photo. Had she? He’d sent her Annie's photograph of Pfeiffer Beach. She couldn't talk, but maybe she could remember … something. Did the picture of the alcove hanging across from her bed give her comfort? Would these photos?
He slid the contents of the envelope into his hand. There must be at least a few dozen of them, he thought as he fanned some out. Pictures he’d never seen.
The one on top was Constance. An old, square black-and-white with the trademark jagged edges. She looked no older than thirteen. His eyes were her eyes, his stance her stance. He smiled and went to the next.
Pausing — the smile leaving his face, being replaced with a perplexity he could feel in his brow — he held it out from the rest. It was a photo of his mother and his father. He quickly shuffled through all of them. Practically every picture contained his father. It had been so long since he’d seen the man's face he’d forgotten what it looked like.
He had virtually no memory of him. The bastard had left when Cal was five. He was merely a fuzzy recall. A dream image. A faint outline of a man’s face and a still frame in his mind of his father’s gait. It was all that was left of the stranger. The only tangible thing that remained of Cal's father was the Prescott name. He never knew why she’d kept it. The name. Now, he wondered why she’d kept the pictures.
Cal spread them on top of the dresser, stared at them for several seconds, eyes darting back and forth from one to another, over and over. Then he started to pace. There wasn't much space to walk in that part of the room — in any of it. Nonetheless, he paced, scraping his palm across his cheek, taking his hands in and out of his pockets.
He didn't belong.
That was it.
The hallmark.
He didn’t belong anywhere.
Not in the photos, the house, or the room. He didn't fit or belong. No one understood him.
His mother had always kept his father hidden, and for fuck’s sake, here, literally, in her goddamn drawer, the man was still hidden. Why?
Cal’s eyes started to move quicker than his thoughts, and the temper he’d masterfully controlled for most of his adult life was about to turn green. He snatched one of the pictures off the dresser and held it in his hand, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. Maybe it would snap in half. Along with him. They could snap together. Rip and tear. Become invalid.
After walking to the side of his mother’s bed, Cal stared down at her body, and then he looked up at her face, feeling a great shame for what he was about to do — but the emotion was heavy, and he couldn't keep it down. He couldn't pretend or control.
He held the picture in front of her eyes.
He shook it.
"Who was he?"
God, Cal didn't recognize his own voice. It was laced with bullshit and fear. It was the first time he’d spoken a personal word out loud to Constance since he’d come home. He had read, played music, even sung. But he hadn’t spoken to her or told her things or asked her questions — for fuck’s sake — because she couldn't answer. He was such an asshole. A huge, righteous asshole.
The loss.
The non-belonging.
The photographs.
The disease.
The guilt.
The inability to bridle the endless searcher who lived inside him. It all only served to stir up his anger into some kind of disgusting, inedible soup.
"Why did he leave you?" Cal asked louder than before, tears beginning to form.
What did it matter if she couldn't talk? Constance had never answered his curious questions about his father growing up — when she could talk — and one day, he’d stopped asking. All he knew about his father were the things his grandpa E.W. had told him. His father’s name had been unmentionable in Constance's house. Taboo. A curse.
Cal couldn’t conceive why she’d kept those photos so private and safe in her drawer, protected, when she could never bring herself to even utter the name of her former husband in front of her son.
"Was it because you couldn't love him the way he needed to be loved?”
He shook the photo again, then brought a hand to his forehead. He was sweating. Everywhere. He was just as angry at himself as he was at the idea of those pictures. He felt both guilty and relieved. Purged.
He set the picture down on the nightstand and rubbed his eyes, then looked back at Constance. His tongue weighed a thousand pounds, and his throat was full of knives.
"You couldn't love anyone, Mom." He stared into her empty nutsh
ell eyes.
"She loved the only way she knew how." Michelle’s reasonable voice startled Cal.
He swung his head around and looked at his cousin, contempt filling his already seething eyes. "And what way was that, Michelle?"
Walking farther into the tense room and over to the other side of her aunt’s bed, she said, "You shouldn't speak to her like this, Cal." She adjusted Constance's pillow and stroked her arm softly. “Shhh." Michelle shifted her gaze back to him. “You’ll agitate her."
"I will agitate her." Cal was riddled with pain. Bullet holes. He didn't know what he was saying anymore, or he didn't care. No … he did care. Too much.
He stretched his arms, keeping his hands clasped together behind his head and his elbows bent, spread out like the wings of a butterfly.
He wanted it to come out, all of it, everything he’d held back for as long as he could remember. He looked at his mom, then at Michelle. She continued to hum and run her fingers over the entire length of Constance's arm.
"No, I never could speak to her about such things." His eyes roved over his mother's frame. "Maybe that was the problem. Constance wouldn't have any sentimental talk in her home." He stared at his mother, some sort of wet filling his eyes, then he looked back at his cousin. "Look at her, Mishy. This is all I have left of the past. This is it. I feel like I never even knew who she was."
He sat on the edge of the bed, exhaling his anger, replacing it with sadness.
"You knew who she was." Michelle sat down too, on the other side. The two cousins looked like bookends.
"She showed me what she wanted to." Defeat or apathy coursed through his veins and eyes.
"Maybe that really was all of her. She gave you all she had to give."
Cal looked at Constance, contemplating that idea. Maybe what she’d given him had been enough. Maybe it had been all she’d known and could’ve done and had done. He rested his hand on his mother’s forearm, tickling her skin.
Michelle reached over Constance's frail body and touched Cal's hand. "Let go of the past, you stubborn man. You have a future now. You have a family."
Wheels began to turn and shift. He blinked. Then he opened his eyes wide. Then wider. A family... Fuck. A family. The wheels gained momentum, sped up. Shock met fate. They shook hands. He did have a family. Why was it so hard for him to let them into his fiercely private circle?
"A family," he whispered, then touched his lips. He needed to feel the words leave his mouth.
He stood up tall in his mind. My God. For the first time since Annie had uttered the words I'm pregnant, he felt like a father. It clicked. Connected. Made a pathway to his heart. Cal was ready to end the bullshit and let Annie into his esoteric circle. Fully, unequivocally, and unconditionally.
Forever.
"Did you tell her?" Michelle asked, nodding toward Constance.
Cal swallowed. Didn't Michelle realize Constance could hear them? She could? Yes. She could hear them. He accepted it. His mother was there. Here. She knew. Of course she knew. The woman knew everything.
"Always teaching you things, Calvin," she used to say. And what a lesson.
"Did you tell her about the baby?" Michelle's eyes sparkled with tears. "Tell her she’s going to be a grandmother." She wiped under her eyes and sniffled.
Cal watched the two of them. Mom. Michelle. Back and forth. Then he started to cry. He made no noise. Released only a few tears. The whites of his eyes turned red.
He took his mother's hand. "Mom," he said, glancing quickly at the side of Michelle's face for strength. He inhaled. "I'm going to be a dad."
He put his head down and sobbed. His chest shook.
He would be a daddy. She would be a grandmother.
Just what she’d wanted for years. Finally, he could be enough. She could be enough. Everything could be … if he allowed it. Annie had been saying it to him for months.
His mother may never meet his child, her grandchild. He’d waited too long, or he’d waited long enough. Timing. He’d had to wait. Waiting had brought him Annie.
Glancing up, he looked into his mother's eyes, searching the nutshell blue, until he was sure he saw her in there. Until he recognized a flicker of acknowledgment. He’d prayed for it, begged for it.
And he hadn’t imagined it. It was present in her stare.
"You’re going to be a grandma." He smiled through years of frustration and complication. He smiled through tears.
Michelle wiped her eyes and glanced at Cal. The two cousins still looked like neat and sturdy little bookends to one of the greatest stories of their lives. Michelle prodded him gently with her expression, asking him to continue to share the entire story.
Was he a little boy again? Like the kid he’d read about in Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine. He wanted his mother’s approval even though she would never be able to speak it. Her eyes would have to do. They usually were always enough. Haunting, condemning, icy, hard-working, loving. Cal laced his fingers through his mother’s.
"I met a woman." He tripped over his breath. "Her name is Annie. She is..." He turned his head and smiled, then faced her again, looking right into her eyes. "She’s young, and you probably wouldn't like that. But I don't give a damn, because I love her." His natural confidence seeped back into his veins. Annie … his heavy. She was his family, and he couldn’t imagine being without her ever again.
He squeezed Constance's hand. "I love her, and I want to marry her." Jesus. Fuck. Had he just said that out loud? Yes. He had. He didn't make decisions lightly. He made plans. Done. Checkmate. He would marry Annie.
Michelle's eyes popped from her head. She looked at him and smiled.
Cal looked down at his mother’s withered hands and breathed a sigh of crazy-pent-up-asshole relief. He was silent for a moment, then he looked back at his mother’s face.
"You would like Annie." He swallowed past the blades in his throat. "She’s kind and generous, but she’s also tough. She doesn't let other people make decisions for her." He didn't think he could swallow at all. "She’s amazing."
Choked up and unable to speak anymore, he stood and cleared his throat — twice. Turning his face from the bed, he dropped his head, then picked it up. He played with the collar of his shirt.
He was in agony.
He needed words.
He thought he could do without them. He thought his mother's eyes would’ve been enough. The acknowledgment. The something. It wasn't.
He slid his palm to the nape of his neck and rubbed and rubbed. The control was slipping again, and it was too late to stop it. For the second time that night, he didn't want to stop it. He didn't care about consequence. He only knew he had to release the pain in his chest.
"Damn it! Constance!" He threw a hand in the air. "Speak. Please. Why can't you talk? Say something!" He stood at the edge of the bed. "Anything! Tell me what a disappointment I am. Tell me I fucked up. Again!"
Michelle made her way over to Cal and started to put her arm around him, but he pushed it away.
"This disease is bullshit. Utter. Fucking. Bullshit!" Cal took in a few deep breaths. He paced, waiting for Bruce Banner to return so he could calm down, turn from green monster to human.
How much longer? How much longer could he stand to watch her slowly die? That was the worst of it right there. All she needed now was support. And he had to give it, endure it. Trouble was … he had tired of climbing the mountain, of being the mountain. Of being the rock. The protection. A summit. He wanted to drop to the floor and crumble.
"The best thing about Mom was what came out of her mouth." He smiled. "You never knew what in the hell she was going to say, and you braced yourself."
"That's true," Michelle said.
They both laughed, and then they talked for a few minutes, sharing fond memories while including Constance in the conversation. After a while, their chatter grew quiet.
Michelle yawned and looked at Cal. "Do you want to be alone with her a bit longer?"
"Yeah." His eyes neve
r left his mother as he sat next to her on the bed.
"Good night."
"Thanks."
Cal folded his arms across his chest, rubbed his hands over his biceps, and stared into Constance's eyes. Strange … her life flashed before him in stages.
She used to climb a ladder to pick fruit from the trees.
She liked to wink.
She wore aprons every day — and always a variety. Never the same one in a week.
She shook her finger when rebuking him.
She made him stand in the corner, and she made him scrub floors with a toothbrush.
She danced — twirled, really — to her dad's records.
When she smiled, the lines it made swelled all the way up to her blue eyes, and when it went extra wide, he saw her dimples. The ones she’d given him.
Cal took the brush from the nightstand drawer and began to comb his mother's hair for the first time in his entire life.
Each stroke gave him peace.
A comfort.
He didn't need words.
Could she feel it? The peace? The unspoken love?
Holding the brush in his hand, he looked at his mother for a long time, gazing at her in a way he’d never dared to before.
"Mom," he whispered as he pressed his fingers into hers. It was a pleading. A last request.
A nurse came in and broke his concentration. It was time for him to go. He asked for another minute.
Cradling her face in his hands, he tried not to cry.
And he failed.
Cal leaned close to his mother's face, kissed her softly on the forehead, and then the cheek. He started to stand, but something wasn't quite right.
The something that was always missing nagged him.
The voice pulled at his sleeve.
The words trapped inside his mind haunted him.
He knew precisely what was missing. He knew exactly what he needed to do next.
Smiling, Cal bent over close to his mother's ear and placed a hand on her cheek. He could see into her — salty? — eyes. A something. A recognition.
"I love you, Mom."
He brushed a thumb under her eyes, wiped a tear from her cheek, and smiled. He gave her another kiss, and then he stood tall and proud.