The Real Mother

by Judith Michael

  Sara found the tree where they had picnicked, and sat against it in speckled sun and shade, her eyes closed. There were no sounds but bird-songs and the buzzing of flies and bees industrious in the foliage. After her sleepless night, she dozed and woke and dozed, her thoughts untethered but lighting here and there like the birds calling to each other above her. Things to do: help Abby recover from betrayal and loss of friends, and her own mistakes; bolster Doug in his disappointments over his show and help him focus on schoolwork and enjoying his art in each of its stages; support Carrie in her ambitions whether or not the magazine she had been carrying that morning was genuine; talk to Mack and somehow resolve the questions she had about him, and her growing discomfort with him. And go to work Monday morning and deal coolly and efficiently with demanding clients about whom she didn’t give a damn.

  And then her thoughts swung back to the center, as always, back to Reuben. I miss you. I want to talk to you about everything that’s happening; I want to know what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, if you think of me, if you miss me.

  If she’s still there. If she always will be. If you’re trying to be free.

  I want to help you; I want you to help me. I want to love you. I want you to love me. I want your arms around me, mine around you, our bodies…

  I don’t want to do everything alone.

  She dozed, and when she woke again she knew from the angle of the sun that it was getting late and she had to leave. Besides, she was hungry: she had not eaten since nibbling cheese and crackers the night before, at Doug’s show.

  In her car, she started the engine, then sat for a moment, looking back at the pristine fields. A shame to dig them up for houses and shops, but it was Reuben’s dream, and she believed him when he said he would preserve as much of it as he could: broad, untouched spaces where people could sit against a tree with birdsongs above them, and dream and find a calm center, a sense of balance, before returning to whatever turmoil awaited them beyond this place.

  She drove to the corner and was waiting to turn when a car drove past her and stopped at the opening in the fence where she had parked. Curious, she watched in her rearview mirror as a group of men emerged. Three of the men unrolled large blue sheets of paper and flattened them on the hood of the car, holding down the corners. The fourth man was Lew Corcoran.

  The men bent over the sheets of paper. Now and then one would turn and gesture toward the fields behind them, sketching in the air. One man took pictures. Another made notes on the papers before them as they went through them. When one of the men held the sheets vertically, Sara saw blue lines, cross-hatching, and long lines of type, with a logo, unidentifiable from this distance, in the lower right-hand corner.

  Blueprints, she thought.

  Lew Corcoran and blueprints. Lew Corcoran in real estate.

  Mack.

  Corcoran Enterprises. Not exactly original, but nobody asked me……a big operator with lots of opportunities for a go-getter… There’s big money in real estate…

  The man next to Corcoran was looking at her car. Corcoran could recognize it, Sara thought (but didn’t all Swedish cars look alike?), and drove away, turning the corner. She drove slowly, trying to remember the last time they had driven away from River Bend, with Abby, Doug, and Carrie in the backseat. Reuben had been talking about the demonstration they had left behind, about his interview with a woman, Charlotte something. “…There was a phrase she said she liked—meaning she’d heard it from someone else—about too many different kinds of people coming in. She said they’d destructively destroy a decent town…an odd phrase.”

  And Carrie had said, “That’s the way Mack talks.”

  What had the people in River Bend said to Reuben when he asked who was organizing the marches?

  The kid.

  Sara felt sick. She had never been able to trust him as, ideally, a sister would trust a brother, but she had let herself be lulled by his smooth words and smiles, the earnestness in his voice each time he said he wanted to be part of their family, and the affection he showed Abby and Carrie and Doug. (And how much easier to be lulled when she had wanted to be with Reuben; she could not let herself forget that.)

  But her instincts had been right. He was not trustworthy. He had come to them not out of loneliness or love or a desire to belong; he had come because he needed a comfortable (and safe?) place to stay. Or, perhaps, to hide.

  She had to talk to him and somehow he had to leave. She could not trust him in her house. She could not trust him with three young people who looked up to him (except when they didn’t: He can be really mean, Sara; I mean, we love him, but sometimes… ) and whom he had co-opted with gifts and storytelling and the air of a visiting uncle who offers play times and presents but none of the hassle of discipline or limits.

  I’ll talk to him when I get home, she thought. We are not going on like this, not one more day. He’ll have to find another place to stay; I don’t care where he goes, as long as he leaves.

  But first she had to tell Reuben. He had been fighting shadows since the demonstrations began, over two months ago; now she could give him information he could use to find out what was happening.

  How can I call him? What if she answers?

  She drove another mile, then another, until she was almost at the expressway.

  It did not matter. She had to tell him. He had to know.

  She turned into a side street and pulled over, to call him. His taped voice answered. At that familiar resonance, Sara flushed, her whole body responding as if he had touched her. Not now, not now, she told herself; just get this over with.

  “Reuben, it’s Sara,” she said, her voice calm, neutral. “I’ve found out that Lew Corcoran has visited the Carrano Village site with blueprints. I don’t know anything more, but I thought he might be behind the demonstrations and, maybe, the vote in the River Bend City Council.” She hesitated. “I hope this helps,” she added.

  She could not tell him about Mack. My brother has been organizing marches against you, trying to sabotage your project… She was not sure of it (she felt quite sure but had no proof) and she owed it to Mack to confront him first (she felt she owed him nothing, but, still, she had no proof). More crucial, she felt, irrationally, that it was a weakness in her that her brother was a person she could neither admire nor trust, that it seemed he was working to undermine everything Reuben was trying to achieve. My brother has been organizing marches against you…

  Someday Reuben would learn this. Most likely he would learn it when he investigated Corcoran. But Sara could not tell him.

  As if she were still on the telephone, she could hear his voice, mundane words asking a caller to leave a message, a warm, intense voice that had settled deep within her. She started the car and drove onto the expressway, staying in the slower right lane, thinking how oddly like a mirage the road looked when seen through a film of tears.

  TWELVE

  Mack went to see his mother.

  He went unannounced, and stood in the doorway, observing her as she read. He was shocked and confused by how much she had aged, her lined face accentuated in the bright sunlight. She felt his presence and looked up, and even Mack, who was not fanciful or poetic, felt the air freeze.

  Abruptly, Tess reached toward a button on the wall. “Don’t, please don’t,” Mack said. “I just want to talk for a while.” He flashed a warm smile. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to talk to my mother.” He walked into the room, vaguely aware of its bright colors and luxurious fabrics, and sat in an armchair close to Tess. His smile thinned when she flinched, her finger still hovering near the wall button, and he pushed the chair a few inches back. “Is that better? I know you don’t want me too close, but is this okay? I just want to talk, you know, talk to my mother, can’t we do that?”

  Slowly, Tess withdrew her hand. She closed her book, but kept her swivel table across her lap, like a barrier, and looked at him steadily. It was always difficult to read Tess’s face, with
one side paralyzed and the other often trembling or slack, but Mack did not know that; he saw only immobility, which he interpreted as stubborn anger.

  He shook his head sadly. “You can’t let go, can you? Still mad at me. God, that’s so hard to take. My mother still mad at me. Still, yet, and always. From the fucking day I was born.” Tess’s good hand clenched, and because Mack had no understanding of her, and therefore could not know how desperately she was working to control her muscles and frantic heartbeat, he saw only further proof of anger. But the moments dragged on and she did not speak, and he began to realize that Sara and the kids had been right. His mother was locked in silence: she could not talk, and writing was so difficult she seldom resorted to it. Surrounded by a world of sound, she was condemned to do nothing but listen.

  “Wordless in the midst of wordy wordiness,” Mack muttered, not realizing how broadly he had begun to smile. He let out his breath and settled back. “You look very pretty, very élégante as Sara used to say when she was showing off her French. But then, you always did. My friends always said I had the prettiest mother of all. They envied me, did you know that? Told me how lucky I was. And I never said a word about the hell of my life at home. Why would I? I liked being envied. I guess they’d still envy me, since you’re still so pretty. And you have a pretty room. Great colors. Did Sara do it for you?” He waited until Tess gave a small nod. “Good for Sara. Sara the good. Sara the perfect. Always doing the right thing. I grew up jealous of her, you know. My big sister, the anointed favorite.”

  A shadow that might have been a frown appeared on one side of Tess’s face. “Sure she was. The perfect daughter, the firstborn, and for seven adorable years the only child. Until I came along. You’d think you would have hailed me, you know, a son, the first kid with the new husband, beginning of a new life…and you know what?” He leaned forward, his voice dropping slightly to confidentiality. “I kept waiting for it. I kept waiting to be hailed, the prince of the household, the hope of the future, but it never happened. Because I wasn’t anything like Sara, perfect Sara. Sara never got into trouble with the cops, Sara never flunked a course in school—shit, she never even got a B—Sara never came home drunk, Sara never borrowed money from her mother’s purse, Sara never swore at her parents, not even once. What did Sara do, you might ask?” He shrugged. “Truth to tell, not much. That is, not much worth noticing. Which meant, to her parents, she took first prize.”

  He sat back, slowly shaking his head as if in wonderment. “Did it ever occur to you and my father that maybe I couldn’t be like Sara, even if I wanted to? That I was made of different stuff? You know, I don’t think it did. I think you two really thought you could turn me into Sara Number Two. You didn’t love me the way I was; you’d only love me if I changed. That hurt, you know; it made me feel like shit. Which is what you thought about me anyway. I wasn’t worth shit. I guess you still feel that way.”

  Restlessly, he stood up, saw Tess’s hand reach for the button on the wall, and said quickly, “Sorry, truly, Ma, I’m sorry. I get carried away sometimes.” Once again he flashed his warm smile, his blue eyes bright and crinkly, his face alive with humor and affection, suddenly handsome and boyish. He came back to the chair, shifting to find a way to relax. “Ma, listen, I came to talk, to be happy, not to have an argument. I just want to sit here and kind of figure out where we are. A lot’s happened, you know, so much…”

  His voice trailed away and for a moment he contemplated Tess’s expressionless face. “All I ever wanted,” he said at last, his voice low and intimate, “was to be first. I was your first kid with the name Hayden— let’s not forget that Sara’s an Elliott—and also the first son. The first son, Ma, you remember what the Bible says about first sons? They’re first in everything. But how could I be first when Sara was around? I was always second, always going to be second. I cannot begin to tell you how I hated that.”

  He paused, then his smile burst forth. “But it’s okay, you know, I’ve gotten over it, I don’t even think about it anymore. Except, I come home after three years, ready to forgive and forget, because I’m lonely— you know?—wanting a family, wanting a home, and my own mother won’t let me see her. The kids see my mother; Sara sees my mother. But not me. Now I’m in fifth place, behind everybody else. So there I was, in my house, in my old room, but still lonely. And nobody cared.”

  He scowled, as if sensing there was something wrong with that. “Well, what I mean is, of course I wasn’t really lonely. I mean, I had the kids, and sweet Sara, a family, you know, but not my mother. Not my ma. The one I came home for. And I was so happy when Sara finally said you wanted to see me; I was almost crying, I was so happy. But whenever I tried to set a time, you’d say not yet. Not yet. Like a knife, every time you said that. Not yet. Like, what were you afraid of? That I’d come charging in and attack you because I was still mad at you? I’m not, Christ, I don’t have time for that, I’m too busy. Busy,” he repeated, and nodded at his mother, his smile flashing again, like a neon sign on a dark street. “A busy fellow.”

  He crossed and recrossed his legs, thinking for the first time that maybe it wasn’t so wonderful talking to someone who was locked in silence. It was beginning to get on his nerves. He needed some feedback. “The thing is,” he said at last, a small tremor in his voice, “I never could figure you out, you know? The two of you. I always thought parents are supposed to forgive their kids when things go wrong: you know, endless love and forgiveness. No judging. Parents don’t judge, right? But that wasn’t you two. I used to sit up there in my room and wait for you to come up, for my father to come up, and give me some sympathy. But you know what he’d do? Knock on the door and ask me if he could come in, that we had lots of things to talk about. We didn’t have anything to talk about! I didn’t need a lecture, I needed a father who would understand me, understand that I was not happy. Did you think I liked being hauled around by the cops? Sitting in those fucking police stations until you or my father came and bailed me out, and hearing the cops talk about me the whole time? One of ’em called me a walking train wreck—I never forgot that—and I told him he was an asshole for mixing his metaphors and he knocked me around. Nobody cared, so he knocked me around.”

  He glared at Tess, willing her to answer him, enraged at her silence, enraged that, even capable of speech, she might have chosen silence anyway, because that was what she used to do: refuse to answer him when he swore at her or demanded to know why she said he could not do whatever he wanted to do. He bared his teeth and enjoyed seeing her wince. “I always wanted to tell you about the fucking cops knocking me around every time they hauled me in. You know why I didn’t? Because one day you wrote me a letter. I don’t suppose you remember, but it burned a hole in me. Christ, you could have come upstairs to my room—I said you could, remember? Anytime you wanted anything, you knew where to find me. I didn’t hold it against you that we fought all the time—I didn’t like it, but I didn’t hold grudges—you and my father were the champions at that—anytime you wanted to talk to me you knew where to find me.”

  He stared at her, waiting for some sign, some signal that she wanted to defend herself. “Don’t throw it up to me that I wouldn’t let my father in—I did once, but he didn’t have a clue what I needed; why would I do it more than once?—don’t throw that up to me. I would have let you in anytime. Anytime you wanted to make me feel better, feel taken care of. That’s what mothers are for, for Christ’s sake! I didn’t want you to tell me what I was doing wrong, I knew things weren’t right, I just needed somebody to make me feel safe.”

  He flexed his fingers. “So you wrote me a stinking letter. Remember what you said? Love ends. You wrote that to your own son. Shit, I hadn’t done one fucking thing to you or my father; everything I did was to other people. And then the last time the police hauled me in, for knocking off that 7-Eleven, you said you’d hire me a lawyer and then decide what you’d do with me. Hire me a lawyer. Criminals need lawyers; not high school kids who have parents t
o take care of them! I was sixteen years old and you said I was incorrigible. You know what incorrigible means? Incurable! Hopeless! So… what? It was the trash heap for me, right? That’s where shit goes: to the trash heap. That’s where I went: a month in that hellhole. Juvenile detention center. That was supposed to make me feel good?”

  Tears squeezed into his eyes. “You were supposed to forgive me. Keep the front door open, give me a safe place. I called my father when I was in that hellhole—he ever tell you this?—and told him it was his fault I had to knock places off—he never gave me enough money—and if some people got hurt along the way, it wasn’t my fault, things just got out of control sometimes. I explained it all, so he’d understand and get me out of there. You know what he said? You’d tried to understand me, and couldn’t. Who’s fault was that? He was blaming me because you couldn’t understand. I did my best; you failed. But I was the one in jail.”

  He looked past Tess, through the window, and his voice turned ruminative, talking to himself as much as to Tess. “I was so mad all the time. I was never not mad. I never once woke up thinking I had a great day ahead of me; I always woke up feeling like shit and remembering everything I was mad at. Head of the list, you and my father for ruining my life. You were so primitive: all you could think of was punishing me. Did you think you’d change me by grounding me, for Christ’s sake? And taking things away from me—driving privileges, allowance, what the fuck, everything you could think of. Did you ever think that if you’d been giving me things I wouldn’t have been mad and I wouldn’t have had to find other ways to get money? Shit, I just wanted to live a normal life and be in control of it, but you kept a leash on me and you’d yank on it whenever my idea of normal didn’t match yours. You didn’t do drugs, you never drank anything harder than wine, you drove at the speed limit, or near it, you never lied or cheated or committed a crime, at least you never admitted it. So you were good and I was bad, which meant incorrigible. So finally you wrote me a letter. Saying love dies. Or was it love ends? One or the other. Was that supposed to make me turn over a new leaf, a Sara-leaf? Sara gets mad at people, too, you know, she has a hell of a temper, she’s just better at hiding it than I am.”