I nodded.
“So this young woman, who clearly loves her child, takes this opportunity to get herself all the way from Iowa to Framington on the bus. She does this, in her own words, so that her daughter can see her not as a person high on drugs or alcohol, but as a sober human being. Are you still with me?” Mom smiled.
“Yes.”
“Well, then, Rebecca. It seems to me that Rowena needs your help. She isn’t here to take her child away from her grandmother. She isn’t here to turn over a new leaf, or make Bob and Ella think more highly of her than they do of you. The way you describe her, she is well aware of her limitations. ‘Junkie’ isn’t the way you ought to be thinking of her. You are holding onto a very limiting stereotype when you call her that, aren’t you?”
“Mom, who is the heavy, here? I am a Good Samaritan, for heaven’s sake! Why the scolding?”
Mom slid her way along the sofa until she was right next to me. Close enough that I could smell her Chanel No. 5 and see the tiny hazel specks in her green eyes. She put her arm around my shoulders very softly.
“I am not scolding you, honey. I’m your mother. I’m telling it the way it is. What is the new phrase everybody puts on Facebook? ‘I hate adulting’? It seems to me that you are the adult in this situation, don’t you agree? No matter how tough that is.”
She patted my shoulder. I leaned against her, my eyes watering and my nose running. But I stifled any inclination to cry.
▷◁
Things looked a lot better to me after I spent those few minutes in my mom’s arms. So when I got home, I settled into bed and slept as if in a coma. I woke up the next morning with Simpy plastered, purring, on top of my head, and the need for a huge mug of coffee. I was also possessed with a new, strong sense of resolve.
Since it was a Saturday, I was able to text Rowena that I would see Bob before lunchtime. Sit tight.
She immediately texted back: Will she see me?
I was honest. Not sure, but I will try.
After I finished my coffee and snuggled with Simpson for fortification, I threw on a pair of cargo pants and an old Denison tee shirt and crossed the street. Before I could even clack the knocker, Janey opened the door and handed me a warm blueberry muffin on a paper towel. “I saw you comin’, hon!”
“Is Bob up?” I took a bite of the muffin, its steamy sweetness a huge comfort.
“Yup. She’s up and dressed. She has already talked with her gran on the phone this morning. You all can go pick her up as soon as they sign her discharge papers. Ella told Bob it would probably be in an hour or so. Bob is pretty hyped up. She’s in the kitchen, working on her second muffin.”
As soon as she heard me in the hall, Bob dashed out of the kitchen, her smile wreathed in crumbs. “Gran’s fine! We get to go bring her home before lunch!” The old Bob seemed to be back, bouncing and weaving in the hall, splitting her freckles in half with a huge grin.
I put my hands on her shoulders to try to slow her down. “We need to have a conversation, kiddo. Serious one. Let’s go into the living room and sit down for a few minutes.”
Bob caught my mood and deflated on the spot. “This is about my mother.”
She scuffed into the living room and sat down in Ella’s chair. I would have preferred to sit beside her on the sofa, but Bob was keeping her distance. So I sat down in the center of the sofa and crossed my hands in my lap. Bob looked at me and blinked quickly, as if she had suddenly developed a tic.
“Your mom really wants to see you.”
Bob drew up her legs again, as she had at the hospital last night. She clutched her knees as if to protect herself from an onslaught. “I know. I don’t want to see her.”
I raised my palms and lowered my head in a gesture, I hoped, of peace. “Bob, I know you don’t. But I spent a lot of time talking with your mother, and I think that she needs to tell you something important. No. Maybe to show you something important.”
“I know. I didn’t say I wouldn’t see her. I just said I don’t want to.”
It was my turn to blink, more in shock than anything. “Wait. You are okay with talking to Rowena? How did you come to change your mind?”
“Didn’t you tell Gran that she only wanted a few minutes with me?”
“I did; that’s right.”
Bob scrunched up even tighter. “So okay. I will talk to her for a few minutes. But you have to be with us. It can’t be alone. I need you and Gran to be there. It’s okay. She won’t faint again. She’s strong enough now.
My entire prepared opening statement was unnecessary. Somehow, this little tightly wound up pile of arms and legs had made up her mind to go with the flow. It didn’t make any sense to me. Especially since Bob looked even more strained than she did last night.
“Bob, you don’t seem very comfortable with your decision. You actually look like a turtle completely disappearing into its shell; I don’t think you could hug your legs any tighter. So your words don’t match your body language right now. Help me understand.”
Bob let go of her knees and straightened out her legs in the chair. She looked at me while she stroked her thighs, as if to reintroduce the circulation in her legs. “Last night, before we left the hospital, Gran told me something.”
I remembered. “She whispered something to you, didn’t she?”
“Yes. She told me that she and I have to remember to make my dad proud of us.”
It took every bit of self-restraint to keep myself from flying across to Bob and attempting to make the term “eat her with a spoon” somehow a reality. Instead, I must have choked, trying to get my own words out. “Bob, I can make this happen. One thing, though. Are you sure about your gran?”
Bob fished in her shorts pocket and pulled out her cell phone. She punched and swiped until a text message flashed onto her screen. It was from Ella (I had no idea she knew how to text; Bob was a better tech advisor to Ella than I realized). The text read:
Bobby. I am ready for her if you are. Gran J
“You taught your gran how to text?” Bob wrinkled her nose. “Yeah.”
“AND USE EMOTICONS? This may just be the end of the world!”
Bob managed a single giggle. It sounded like harp music to me, I can tell you.
▷◁
Rowena agreed to meet me for dinner at Arby’s. I got there first and ordered a Diet Coke. As I sipped it, I looked around at the other diners. There was a man with acne scars, greasy hair, and dirty overalls. Probably a laborer. He stuffed French fries and bites of burger into his mouth, hardly chewing. His companion looked about fifteen, her hair lank, her hands wrapped around a milkshake. She was at least fifty pounds overweight, and she was crying between sips. His daughter? His girlfriend who was pregnant, perhaps? To my left, an elderly woman sipped a small coffee. She looked at every person in line, as if hoping for someone to recognize her. Lonely, I guessed. Everyone in the place had a story. Arby’s—full of roast beef, French fries, and human drama.
I caught sight of Rowena as she walked through the parking lot towards the building, her jeans torn into frayed slices, but most likely not due to some sort of fashion statement. Her matchstick arms hung out of the sleeves of a grayish tee shirt that said GET REAL across the front in black caps. As she approached, she glanced behind her, as if worried about being followed. She carried the same greasy, black backpack over one knife-thin shoulder. I waved at her through the window. She nodded and pulled the door open—it seemed to take all her strength to do so.
As she slid into the booth opposite me, I caught a whiff of marijuana. So she was “clean,” but not completely. I stiffened at the smell. “Hi. Are you settled in at the Y?”
She raised one eyebrow. “That was sincere. But, yeah. I’m okay.”
I stood up. “I’m getting a hamburger. Do you want something? My treat.”
It was Rowena’s turn t
o stiffen. She reared back, reached into her jeans pocket, and pulled out some bills. “I have money. I can buy my own damn food.”
This was starting out well. We walked up to the counter together, and I hoped I didn’t see anyone that I knew. I ordered a cheeseburger with everything, and Rowena ordered a roast beef sandwich with barbecue sauce and a Coke.
As we ate, Rowena kept watching the door.
“Are you being followed or something?” I asked.
Rowena threw her head back and laughed roughly. “It’s a habit; hard to break. I am always on the lookout to score. Stupid, huh? When I’m straight? Shit.” She looked down at her half-eaten sandwich and ran her finger through the barbecue sauce on the waxed paper. “This is the way it is with addiction. It’s with you, reminding you, all the time.” She crumpled up her napkin. “See this?” She held out the napkin wad, stained red with sauce. “This is what I feel like right now. A wadded up piece of trash. Being straight isn’t glowing and bright. It’s just me, Rowena. A loser. I am a loser when I’m high, and I am a loser when I’m straight—because when I’m straight, I just want to be high again.” Her eyes flashed at me, challenging me to disagree.
“You have no way of even beginning to understand.” Rowena lifted her thumb to her face and gnawed on her cuticle.
I pushed my hamburger aside and leaned toward her. “I don’t understand this. You are, by your own admittance, a complete mess. You have no hope. So why are you here? Why are you inflicting all of this on your daughter and Ella?” I resisted the urge to punch her.
Rowena took her thumb out of her mouth and sneered. “Because Roberta is my daughter! Because all I can do for her is to see her right now, when I am able to make sense to her. I need to show her that”—she swept her arms down her torso as if displaying a prize in a quiz show—“THIS is not what she should become! That THIS is her mother!” Rowena shook her head. “I want to tell her that I love her so much that I want her to forget that I ever existed.” Rowena’s nose started running. “I want her to know that I love her, and then I want her to erase me from her life.” She wiped her nose with the heel of her hand. “That’s all.”
I handed Rowena my napkin, and she blew her nose. I felt suddenly cold, as if the AC was on overdrive. I didn’t know what to say. So I put my hand over hers and we sat, both of us gorged with emotion, in the midst of a mediocre fast food restaurant in America’s heartland.
▷◁
Getting Ella home and settled was nowhere near as laborious as it had been with her hip. She still needed her walker, and the hospital insisted on a wheelchair. But once we got her home, she was relatively spry, getting herself out of the car and up against the walker. She only needed a bit of support from Bob.
Janey had made a delicious lunch of our favorites: grilled Velveeta sandwiches with tomato soup, followed by a wide assortment of cookies. I ate every bit. Ella picked at hers nervously, and Bob didn’t take one bite. Since it was a beautiful day, Janey hustled us out onto the porch to have our “meeting.”
Bob sat in one rocker, Ella sat in the other, her walker off to one side; and I sat on Ella’s wicker ottoman. Janey made sure we had iced lemonade. “Now you all make a plan, and I will make myself scarce.” The door popped closed behind her.
“Rowena says she can stay here a couple of days. She hinted that after that, her money will run out. She’s at the YWCA downtown.”
Ella smoothed her slacks, as if they actually contained wrinkles. “I think it’s best if we get this over with, as soon as possible, or Bobby and I might just worry ourselves to death over it. Don’t you agree, Bobby?”
“I have a lump in my throat after I swallow. Gran says it’s nerves. I don’t like feeling nervous like this. And I can’t sleep. I want to get it over with, too.”
I pulled my phone out. “I have Rowena’s number. I’m sure she’s waiting very impatiently to see you both. I bet she would be willing to come over this afternoon.”
Bob stiffened. “And you promise you will stay with me and Gran?”
“I promise. Should I make the call?”
They looked at one another and said “yes” simultaneously.
So Rowena would be arriving in a half hour.
It seemed like an eternity. The way time slows down to a trickle—like when you are waiting for biopsy results or the letter telling you whether or not you got into college. Ella rocked in her chair for dear life, I paced, and Bob sat on the steps, tapping her heels until I could stand it no longer and sat down beside her and forced those skinny knees into the “down” position.
Just as we thought we might all explode from the combined tension, Bob pointed. Rowena walked down the street towards us. She looked quite different than the day before. Her hair was clean and shiny. What was mousy gray yesterday gleamed golden brown today. She wore a yellow headband that framed her forehead almost like Alice in Wonderland. Instead of the ratty leggings, she wore a clean, white tee shirt and a long paisley skirt. Her bright orange toenails peeped out of her Birkenstocks. She carried her grody backpack, and her steps were tentative, but as she got closer to us, she drew herself up and began to move more quickly, like an automaton. But I realized that there was a good reason for that.
As she turned up our sidewalk, Bob and I stood up and moved aside so Rowena could come up onto the porch.
Ella’s voice never wavered. “Rowena. I won’t get up. It’s a little too difficult. But I want to shake your hand.”
Rowena stepped up to Ella and held out a hand, awkwardly. Ella grabbed it in both of hers and squeezed, rubbing Rowena’s hand as if to warm it. “Sit down, dear.”
Rowena sat in the wicker chair beside me. She seemed at a loss.
“Beck said you wanted five minutes.” Bob waggled her hand: let’s move this along.
Rowena flinched. I leaned over and flicked Bob on the arm with my thumb and index finger. “We don’t have to be rude. Sit down and listen politely.”
“I will only use up the five minutes. I came here, Roberta, to sit in front of you today as a clean and sober person. No matter what happens to me from now on, I am the mother that gave birth to you, and nobody will ever love you more than I always have.”
Bob’s eyes clouded.
“Wait. I’m sorry. Bob. You want to be called Bob.” She paused and seemed to gather herself. “Today, I feel good. I can eat, because now that I’m straight, I have an appetite. I’m taking a medication that eliminates my craving for heroin. I spent time in rehab, and I got clean cold turkey. You see, this drug I’m taking, Suboxone, is pretty expensive, and up until recently, it was experimental. There isn’t a lot of it out there. Beck can explain all that to you. So yes, I am obtaining it illegally; I can’t get it from a doctor.”
Ella put a hand over her eyes. I wanted to cover mine, too—it was so hard to watch this. Not Bob. She looked unflinchingly into Rowena’s eyes.
“This is why I am here. As long as I take Suboxone, I do okay. As I said, since I’m eating now, I have enough energy to maybe get a job. I might go back to waitressing. That’s the goal of every addict. But that isn’t why I’m here.”
Bob remained rigid. She sat stock-still, her eyes boring into Rowena’s.
“So this is why I’m here. Ro—Bob, I wanted you to see me now. Right now, when I am well. I want to tell you that you are a very good girl, just like your father. You are good, and smart, and beautiful. You are nothing like me.”
Bob began to tremble. Her knees knocked; she grabbed them with both hands to still them.
“I want to ask a favor of you, Bob. I want you to promise me that you will remember that I love you, and that is all. I want you to forget about me and all of my mistakes. I am someone that you should never even think about from now on. I want you to go out there and do good things. I don’t want you to have to remember what a disappointment I have been. I don’t want you to think of me at all. J
ust go forward with your life, your gran, your father, and your friends. Please forget about me and be happy. Be happy.” Rowena reached out as if to touch Bob’s cheek, but stopped herself. Instead, she kissed her hand and put in on the top of Bob’s curls, just for a split second.
“So that’s it. The five minutes. And I promise all of you that I won’t be back. You can count on that. As long as you can promise me, Bob. Promise to look forward, and not back at me.”
Bob stood and backed away from her mother. She reached out blindly in my direction, so I took her hand and squeezed it.
Bob didn’t look at Rowena as she said, “I want you to go now.”
Rowena looked around at me and Ella as if she had just noticed that we were still there. She nodded to Ella, and smiled a weary smile at me. “I will. Now that I have seen you, I can leave town. There is a bus I have to catch in fifteen minutes. I have just enough time to make it.”
Ella held out her hands again, but this time, when Rowena took them, she pulled her down into a hug. “You try to stay healthy and strong, dear. I am so glad to see you again. Bless your heart.”
Rowena turned to me and held out a hand. I shook it, and then surprised myself by kissing her on the cheek.
“Bob, do you want to walk your mother down the block and say goodbye?” Ella looked hopeful.
Bob said nothing. She turned her back on her mother and hurried into the house, shutting the door firmly behind her.
Rowena’s back was straight, her head held high as she disappeared down the street, her backpack bumping against her frail shoulders as she walked. At the end of the block, she turned and waved.
I waved back, my heart overflowing.
Just then, the door flew open, and Bob flew out, galloped down the porch steps, and hurtled down the block toward Rowena, calling, “WAIT! WAIT!”
Rowena turned. Bob sprinted up to her mother, stopped short, and they stood, seemingly in conversation. Then Bob handed something to Rowena, who held it up, and they both stared at it.
“What on earth are they doing?” Ella asked.
Crossing the Street Page 27