The Real Mother

by Judith Michael

  (Much later, when she reflected on all the things she had not done in those days, or things she did but should not have done, she remembered this night, and could not recall a single word of her conversation with Reuben, though she remembered everything Abby had said, and still could hear the thread of pleading in her voice even as she said, I’m fine, really… It wasn’t worth it, she thought then, but that was months later, when dwelling on past failures did no good, when all they could do was try to repair as much of the damage as possible, and go on from there.)

  She did turn back to Abby’s room after the telephone call, to continue their talk and to tell her that she and Reuben were planning to take the three of them to Galena (so Doug can really see the stars), but before she got there, the doorbell rang and Carrie and Doug dashed to answer it, and then ran back to the stairs.

  “Sara,” Carrie called, “there’s a lady here and she wants you.” She came partway up the stairs and whispered loudly, “The same one who was here before.”

  But Pussy Corcoran had followed her and stood at the foot of the stairway, looking up, fastening her too-bright smile on Sara. “I need you,” she said.

  SEVEN

  I don’t know what she expects me to do,” Sara told Tess a few days later, at breakfast. They were at a small table in the dining room of the nursing home, Tess in her wheelchair. Occasionally they glanced at the leafy branches whipped against their window by rain and wind, but mostly they were absorbed in each other with a closeness that deepened each passing month as Sara became more firmly the mother Tess had been. A waitress brought their omelets and muffins, set a bowl of fruit in the center of the table, refilled their coffee cups. “She appears at my front door,” Sara went on, “after I’ve told her a dozen times she is not to do that, she stares at me as if I’m some kind of savior, and says she needs me.”

  Tess pointed to Sara’s left hand, and Sara nodded. “She’s obviously afraid of her husband, but there’s someone else she’s afraid of, someone who has some kind of connection with her husband, maybe works for him; she’s so vague I have no idea what she’s talking about. I don’t know anything about him, really, but when she talks about him it’s always in the context of knowing things she shouldn’t know—she hears things and remembers them, and I got the feeling she goes through papers on a desk he uses in their apartment—and about Lew, her husband, mentioning this other person at odd times; as if, she says, he’s some sort of secret weapon he could pull out whenever he feels like it. Last night she talked—”

  Tess held up her coffee cup and looked a question, wanting the scene described, hungry for details. Sara nodded. “Yes, we were having coffee in the kitchen. I didn’t want her standing on the stairs where the children could hear her, and she was so needy I took her to the kitchen and we sat in the armchairs and had coffee and cookies, and she talked. She talked for an hour, in fact, it was as if a faucet had been turned on, about hairdressers and shopping, and Lew forcing her to take back whatever he happens not to like, and how hard it is to keep maids and chefs when Lew makes demands and complains and springs last-minute dinner guests, including some man she doesn’t like, in fact, may be afraid of—maybe the one who’s the secret weapon. And evidently Lew accuses her of spying, listening to his telephone conversations, wandering into his study, and she says—though I don’t believe this, and I guess Lew doesn’t, either—she wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to be a spy even if she wanted to, besides which she has zero interest in what he does all day, and even if she cared, he made it clear from the day they married—”

  Tess made a gesture. “Four years ago,” Sara said, “his fifth marriage, her first. She’s in her late forties, maybe early fifties, but she says she’s never even had a serious relationship before. She’s not unattractive, but she’s so needy…there’s that word again; it really does describe her perfectly. Anyway, he made it clear that his business is his, not theirs, and all she needed to know was that her bills would be paid.” Sara took a bite of her omelet, recalling Pussy’s pleading eyes and fixed smile. “It sounds like an awful marriage, doesn’t it?”

  Tess turned her hand in a way Sara did not understand until Tess pointed again at the fourth finger of her left hand. “Why did he marry her? I have no idea. Unless he collects needy people he can manipulate and dominate, maybe terrify. I know there are people like that; it’s just impossible for me to identify with them.” She gazed at the branches flicking against the glass; the rain had almost stopped. A bird’s descending song floated through a small opening at the bottom of the window.

  “It’s going to take a lot for Pussy Corcoran to begin to believe in herself, I think. The other day I introduced her to the directors of five nonprofit organizations. They all welcomed her and told her they’d be delighted to have her on their boards, maybe organizing benefit dinners, theater parties, concerts…things she’d probably enjoy. They gave her names of board members to call, to meet for lunch, to talk about the work they were doing, to make friends, for heaven’s sake. You’d think she would have jumped at it. She did seem grateful, but she was distracted, too, and I have no idea how much really sank in. I gave her two days of my time, and I’m still not sure whether I helped her or not. She seems volitionless, almost frozen, as if she can’t imagine herself empowered, no matter what she does, so why do anything?”

  She shook her head slowly. “So many people feel helpless,” she murmured, thinking of Pussy, and Donna Soldana, occasionally Doug and Carrie and Abby, as they navigated the uncertain years of growing up, even herself, when she first left school to come back here, and still, on the darkest days. “So many people feel vulnerable in a world that’s too big and complicated to make sense of, or have some impact on, much less change. Then along comes a bully like Lew Corcoran, who is truly a mean man, who seems to get his kicks making weaker people feel small, even weaker than they felt before. Maybe he’s as fearful as they are; maybe bullying is his way of feeling strong or grown up or both, but that’s even worse: that he’d destroy people’s confidence in order to feel better about himself. A lousy bargain, if you ask me. Contemptible.”

  She looked up, and saw Tess watching her with tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, furious with herself. “I know how helpless you feel, but truthfully, I wasn’t thinking of you; I was thinking of Pussy. You have more pride and confidence in yourself than she does, you’re more a whole person, even though you’re stuck here, in a body that won’t do what you want it to.”

  Tess held out her hand with her small half smile, and Sara took it between both of hers. “I never mean to hurt you; I admire you more than anyone I know. I can’t imagine how I’d have the courage to face each day if I were in your place, but you do, and you’re always here for all of us. We come to you with our problems and our triumphs, and we always feel welcome, not as if we’re burdening you. You must know how incredibly wonderful that is; a lot of people who can walk and talk never take the trouble to listen when others come to them. And Doug and Carrie and Abby, especially, need so much attention, and they love you… Anyway, we all thank you.”

  Their hands clung for a moment and they smiled at each other, comfortably silent. They finished their omelets and raspberries and cream, and sat quietly, gazing at gray clouds thinning to filaments that drifted off, leaving the sky pale and washed clean, but already turning deep blue in the blazing sun that would make it a hot June day.

  “I wish you could talk,” Sara said at last. “I’d love to be told what to do. How do I know that anything I do with the three of them is right? How do parents decide what to do, what choices to make? How do they always know what will be best?”

  She saw Tess’s good eyebrow go up a fraction of an inch. “Well, okay, they don’t always know. But my friends who are parents, and the parents I see at school meetings, look a lot more sure of themselves than I feel a lot of the time. I keep trying to figure out what you would do, but then something new comes up, and all the guideposts vanish. You were s
o fine; I’d just like to be close to what you were.”

  There was a silence. Finally, as if making a decision, Tess pointed to the pad of paper always nearby, and Sara slid it to her and held out the mechanical pencil attached to it by a thin chain. With difficulty, Tess wrote Mack.

  It was the first time she had acknowledged him since Doug had revealed his presence, over a month before.

  Sara stared at the wobbly letters. “You don’t think you were fine with him? But he wasn’t fine with you. He was… difficult, as far back as I can remember. He never thought of what you were going through, or any of us. He only cared about himself. And left when he felt like it, not caring what happened to us.” She contemplated Mack’s name on the pad of paper. “But I think he’s changed,” she said slowly. “He seems to have missed all the good things in our family, and now wants them. He has a job, and he’s home all the …well, actually about half the time, but almost always when I have to be out, and he cooks and entertains, especially with Doug and Carrie, and he gave Carrie a wonderful gift, a journal for her stories. I have much more freedom now, and he’s helping pay for groceries and managing the house—”

  She stopped, hearing the forced tone of her voice. Trying too hard to convince Mother and myself that Mack has changed, and everything is fine.

  And it probably is. Except that…

  Tess was gazing at her with as much of a frown as her muscles could manage.

  “He’s quite different,” Sara said, keeping her voice light. “You might love him again. Would you like to see him?”

  There was a long silence. Tess’s eyes filled with tears again. She gave a small but definite nod.

  Sara took a long breath. She had no idea if this was a good move or not, but she had begun it and now they would have to see it through. “Sometime soon,” she said. “As soon as I know Mack’s schedule, I’ll let you know.” She stood. “I have to go; we’re driving to Galena with Reuben. Do you want to go back to your room?”

  Her mother nodded, and Sara pushed the wheelchair into the gleaming corridor. “We’re staying overnight in Galena. It’s vacation until Abby’s job starts.” She saw Tess’s hand go up, questioning. “I’m sorry; I thought Abby told you. She’s a counselor this year at Lakeshore Day Camp. Doug will be there, as a camper, for one more year, and Carrie will be in summer school, so thank goodness they’re all taken care of while I’m at work.”

  She pushed the wheelchair past small tables with vases of spring flowers, past paintings of seascapes and mountains, past open doorways giving glimpses of rooms ranging from starkly anonymous to a few that approached the sumptuousness Sara had created for Tess. “We’ll be home early afternoon tomorrow.”

  Tess sighed as Sara helped her into her chair, and Sara did not ask whether she was fatigued from the disruption of being moved, or already regretting having agreed to seeing Mack. She embraced Tess and kissed her. “I love you.”

  She arrived at her house just as Reuben pulled up. “Good morning,” he said, and kissed her. Sara smiled. “What?” he asked.

  “I just kissed my mother good-bye; now I’m kissing you hello. This is an affectionate morning.”

  “I saw that,” said Doug accusingly, coming out of the house.

  Sara bent down and kissed him. “This is a day to kiss people. Where is your backpack?”

  “Oh, I forgot. Back in a minute.”

  How strange, Reuben thought, when they were all in his car, driving west toward the highway, how strange to have three young people in the backseat. A dream—for how many years?—that he would have a family, that he and his wife, building their marriage, would watch their children grow: read to them, walk with them, drive together on a hundred, a thousand excursions, join their own exhilaration with life to their children’s excitement as the world opened up before them, fresh, new, untested. Ardis had destroyed that, and he had all but given up finding it. What had never occurred to him was that he might find a family ready-made. And fatherless.

  Would that satisfy him? At one time he would have rejected the idea out of hand, insisting, like most men, that his family be his, made by him, molded by him, imbued with him. Why would he have tolerated, much less welcomed, any family but one where he would see himself reflected, God-like, in his creations?

  Put that way, it sounded ridiculous. But he could not be sure even of that; it was a subject he had never thought about. And now? He did not know. He glanced at Sara. She was absorbed in the road map, her profile to him, and as she made a mark with her pencil, he felt a sudden rush of well-being. He would not call it love, not yet, but, in that moment, the direction of his life until then, and his thoughts of the last few moments, seemed to settle into an extraordinary harmony.

  There had been whispering in the backseat, and now Carrie leaned forward as far as her seat belt would allow. “Reuben, will we be near the town you’re building? Doug really wants to see it.”

  “You do, too!” said Doug indignantly. “We all do.”

  Abby was silent. She stared out the window on her side, generally miserable, convinced this was the worst time of her life and she would never recover, and Sara was making it worse by forcing her to go with them to Galena. Why should she? Why would anybody? It was this little tiny town on a river a long way from Chicago, with a lot of old buildings. Big deal. The fact that she had never been there did not make a bit of difference; it was a long drive, and she was stuck in the car with her family and this… stranger. (He wasn’t even handsome, not nearly as handsome as Sean, but what difference did it make what Sean looked like? She’d never see him again, except at a distance, so why was she even thinking about him, and comparing him to this guy, who, she had to admit, was nice, probably nicer than Sean, though that wasn’t saying much.)

  “We’ll take a detour, and drive past it,” Reuben said. “There’s nothing much there, except a fence, but you can see how much land we have.”

  “And we’ll come back when all the construction stuff is there?”

  “If he and Sara are still together,” Abby muttered.

  “What?” Carrie demanded.

  Abby slumped deeper in her seat.

  “You’re really in a foul mood,” Carrie scolded, “but you don’t have to be obnoxious and take it out on innocent observers and act like everybody breaks up.”

  “Well, lots of people do,” Reuben said mildly after exchanging an amused glance with Sara (which Carrie saw but decided to let pass without comment, a decision she considered incredibly mature, and wished she could tell everyone so they would admire her, but that wouldn’t be mature, so she just had to admire herself by herself). “But,” Reuben went on, “I’m not planning on going anywhere, which is a good thing, because if I decided to leave now, you’d be stranded a long way from home. Anyway, we’re getting close now; we’ll stay on this road and then turn onto a smaller one, and after that, watch for a chain-link fence and a dirt road, a track, really; that leads into Carrano Village West.”

  “How come you don’t pave it?” Doug asked, thinking it sounded like a pretty lousy place.

  “We debated that, but we decided just to widen it and hold off paving until later; construction equipment would tear it apart and we’d have to do it again. Expensive and a waste of time.”

  Doug beamed. Reuben hadn’t made fun of his question; he’d taken it seriously. Why couldn’t all grown-ups do that? “The fence!” he cried as the sun flashed off the steel. “There it is! Who are all those people?”

  Reuben shook his head. “No idea. Bird-watchers, maybe?”

  “But they’re carrying things,” said Carrie. “Wouldn’t bird-watchers carry binoculars or something?”

  The people were clustered beside the high chain-link fence, obstructing a construction sign; they dragged placards behind them or propped them on their shoulders. Sara saw old people and young, couples pushing strollers, children in little clusters of their own, one man in a wheelchair, a few teenagers on skateboards. Jostling and shuffling, they were f
orming a rough line that stretched more than a block along the dirt track outside the fence, and as the car came closer Doug read the placards aloud.

  NO NO NO CARRANO !!!

  DENSITY DESTROYS

  DUMP CARRANO , NOT CONCRETE BUILDERS + BULLDOZERS = BANDITS GRASS NOT GRIDLOCK

  Wow,” Doug breathed. “They’re talking about your town.”

  “They don’t want you?” Carrie asked. “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “I don’t know,” Reuben said slowly, watching through narrowed eyes as a WGN Channel 9 truck spouting a satellite dish on its roof sped around them and pulled up beside the crowd. “But someone alerted the television—” Another truck topped by a satellite dish—NBC CHANNEL 4

  CHICAGO—and then a third—WBBM-TV CHANNEL 2 EYE ON CHICAGO— passed them and parked behind the first truck.

  “Son of a bitch,” Reuben muttered savagely.

  “Who?” Doug cried.

  “I don’t know yet. Generic,” he added more lightly, jolted into an awareness of the adjustments, small and large, that had to be made under the scrutiny of youngsters. Once again he met Sara’s eyes, concerned now, steady on his face rather than the burgeoning demonstration at his site. “I’m sorry,” he said to her, keeping his voice level. “I have to find out what’s going on. If you don’t mind putting off our trip for a few minutes…”

  “For as long as you need. You had no warning of this? Usually there’s publicity.”

  “Not this time.” Anger tightened his throat, made his words flat, bitten off. “Whoever organized this—planned it, had placards painted and distributed, called the press—whoever did that knows the drill and can keep it quiet, which means discipline and direction. I’m going over there; what would you like to do?”

  “Go with you!” Doug yelled. “I’ve never seen one of these in person. I mean, you know, on TV, but not real.”

  “I want to go, too,” said Carrie. “I’ll write a story about it. Like, somebody scared his neighbors with some kind of story, and got them to demonstrate, and then he disappeared and the neighbors took over the march and turned it into a picnic and met each other for the first time and made new friends, so everybody was happy.”