by Ellen Dye
“Holy poop,” I groused, rubbing the back of my head, which was sure to have a good-sized lump by morning.
“Do forgive me for interrupting.” Jamie Sue’s sarcastic tone killed the little remaining magic. “But there seems to be a little problem with your daughter.”
I forgot about the pain in my head and leapt toward the counter. “Olivia?” I was already grabbing for my purse and keys beneath the counter.
“That would be the one.” Jamie Sue shot Sam a dirty look. “Glad to know you remember her name.” Her scornful gaze raked me from the lump on my head to the tips of my sneakers, clearly conveying her opinion of me as a parent.
My Mama Bear instinct took over. “What’s happened to her?” I demanded, growing a few inches in height as I took a half step toward my cousin.
Jamie Sue paled before swallowing audibly and squeaking out a brief answer.
Less than three seconds later I was out the door, behind the wheel of my car, and mentally kicking myself for my lack of responsibility.
****
“Upstairs bathroom,” Mama directed, from her usual seat at the kitchen table, without looking up from the newspaper as I crashed through the back door.
“Right,” I acknowledged as I bolted through the kitchen and then took the stairs two at a time.
My God, how could I have ignored my own child like this? What had I been thinking, sitting around snacking—not to mention kissing—in an empty, candlelit diner while my daughter was having some sort of nervous breakdown.
What the hell kind of parent was I anyway?
I frantically tried to recall all the teen self-help books I’d read prior to Olivia’s turning thirteen. A cry for help. I think that was what they called this behavior. Oh, God. What kind of fungus was I to have carried on like a hormonally driven teenager myself when my real teenager was in such emotional turmoil?
I gave the bathroom doorknob a sharp turn, feeling as though I must be the most pathetic mother to walk the face of the earth.
“Mama?” Olivia croaked.
“Oh, baby.” My insides shattered at her use of “Mama” instead of her usual “Mom.” She only reverted to her childhood name for me when she was truly sick or deeply afraid. At the moment, I was betting on both.
“I’m here now.” I knelt down next to her by the toilet.
She groaned and I brushed a damp lock from her forehead.
“Could I please have some water?”
I filled a cup and knelt nearby while she drank tiny sips.
“I’m so very sorry,” she said, once finished.
“No, baby. I’m the one who’s sorry. We’ll spend more time together. We’ll—”
Olivia held up one hand. “I’m not having a teen rebellion. Or a breakdown.”
I raised one brow.
“I’m having a very stupid moment.”
“Honey,” I began cautiously, trying to remember the basic rules for dealing with a teen in the denial stage. “Clearly you’ve been drinking…” I began and then faltered.
“And so help me God, never again.” Olivia laid her head down on the toilet seat.
“How much did you have?” I asked, dreading the answer.
Olivia turned her pale face toward me. “Less than four ounces. I measured. And I didn’t even finish.”
“How… What…” I stammered, trying to get a grip on the situation.
Olivia sighed. “When will the room stop spinning?”
I ran a cloth under some cool water, my thoughts spinning like the room was for Olivia. She measured? She was having a stupid moment? Not exactly the comments I’d expected to hear.
However, they were also not the sort of comments uttered by potential skid row inhabitants. Or at least I didn’t think so.
I wiped the cloth across her forehead.
“I’m so sorry I ruined tonight for you. I promise I’ll apologize to Sam.” Two large tears fell and slowly rolled down her cheeks. “I’m so embarrassed. I really like Sam, and I know he went to a lot of trouble to make tonight special for you.”
“Honey, there’s no need for you to be embarrassed. Or apologize. But do you think you could explain what’s going on?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s it. I swear, I thought it was just ordinary wine.”
Understanding dawned and thankfully brought the beginnings of relief. I’d never made a habit of it, but when I had the odd night of sleeplessness I would have a glass of wine. And I’d never made an attempt to hide it from Olivia.
“Aunt Nettie’s brew can pack a punch,” I said, now convinced that my daughter was not aboard a runaway train to an alcohol rehabilitation clinic.
“It should have a warning label. A big one, with a skull and crossbones. Oh, God…” Olivia moaned into the toilet.
After a few moments of silence, I asked the big question, “What’s keeping you from sleeping?”
“I feel so helpless. I’m so scared.”
You and me both, kiddo. “Why?”
Olivia closed her eyes. “I know how things are. I want to help. I want to do something to help us. But I can’t. I’m old enough to work, but there’s no work here. And no transportation, either.”
“But you don’t have to work. I’m working. And I’m going to school—”
“Mama, I know.” Olivia cut me off. “I’m really proud of you for all that. I really am. But…”
Complete understanding and total relief coursed through my veins.
I took Olivia’s face between my hands. “I understand.” I felt the security of the combined weight of my paycheck and tips in my front pocket resting against my thigh. “When you have a job, it gives you a feeling of importance. Security, right?”
She nodded. “I’d feel like part of our team.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can do,” I said as an idea began to form in my mind.
Half an hour later, I’d seen Olivia safely tucked into bed and brushed away at least a dozen apologies surrounding her encounter with Nettie’s homemade wine. I decided a glass of iced tea for myself had been well earned.
“Just plain sucks, don’t it?” Mama asked from behind the pages of the paper as I opened the refrigerator door.
“What’s that?” I asked, deliberately making my voice light, although I knew by her tone I was in for an argument, regardless.
“Working your butt off and having no one appreciate it.”
The second the words left Mama’s mouth, time stood still. In my mind a vague idea began to form and then grew solid.
“I never felt that way. I always appreciated everything you did for me.”
Mama snorted. “Didn’t seem like it.”
“Why?”
Mama folded the paper slowly, matching the edges and making a precise crease with an index finger. “No matter what I did, you always wanted something more grand. Bigger. Better. More expensive.”
“That’s not true,” I protested.
Mama continued as though I’d never said a word. “You were such a smart child. So bright. But I think being pretty was your downfall. You were such a pretty baby people used to stop me on the street in town and tell me so. Folks constantly had little goodies for you. Treats, candies, whatever. And that never changed. You just got prettier, and everyone’s fussing sent your head into the clouds. Gave you the idea that some Prince Charming was going to rescue you. You just never would look at reality.”
Mama closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. I began to realize she wasn’t truly talking about me. “No matter how many times I told you otherwise, you were determined that if you were just pretty enough or well-dressed enough, some man would pamper and coddle you through life. Not once would you listen to me, even though I’d lived that joke of a dream once.” Her unspoken And I ended up paying the price for it hung heavily in the air between us.
In this very moment, forty years after the fact, I began to understand Mama.
I knew the basic facts, always
had. My daddy had turned tail and bolted out the door practically the moment Mama returned home from the doctor’s visit that had confirmed her pregnancy. He’d left her high and dry, with nothing to show for their three years of marriage, save for a half-built cottage in the woods and a child on the way.
And while this was going on, or so the story had been told, Mama had washed her hands of him and rinsed with a sigh of good riddance.
Now I saw the truth. Mama had once been as dreamy as I’d been. She’d once thought my daddy was her very own Valiant Knight. And reality had hit her hard, real hard.
Everything became clear.
Every burst of anger, every annoyance she’d ever shown me, every barb—veiled or otherwise—she’d ever tossed my way. I understood them all. Completely.
“I wanted so much better for you.” Mama sighed. “I made sure you went to work as soon as possible. I tried to show you early how hard life was, so you’d be able to cope. I wanted you to be independent, able to tackle anything life threw your way. I didn’t want you to end up like me.”
And so Mama had taken great pains to make sure I’d gotten a dose of unaltered, unsweetened reality at least three times daily.
But what she didn’t understand was that daily dosing was what had made me jump the other way. I didn’t want to end up exhausted, stooped, bitter, and alone, slaving over customer after customer for the rest of my life.
Eventually I’d come to think myself incompetent, and I’d begun to believe that being rescued by my Valiant Knight was my only remaining option for a life of happiness.
“You had such talent,” she mused.
“Talent?”
“The only reason I became a beautician was that your daddy left me. I had to have some way to support us. Beauty school was cheap, and it wasn’t all that hard to learn the basics. But I never had talent. I still don’t.”
“Mama—”
She held up one hand. “It’s true. There is such a thing as talent in this business.” Mama gave a small wave toward the back door and her salon beyond. “It’s a gift you can’t learn in beauty school. And you have that talent. I never understood why you were so determined to throw it away.”
The look in her eyes cut me to the bone. I saw how deeply both my fears and my big dreams of a bright and shining future had cut her.
I’d never known. Never understood.
I took her hand. “I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to imply what you did for me wasn’t good enough. You are a great mother, and you gave me a great childhood. I’m sorry if I led you to think otherwise.”
In the moment of silence that followed, something passed between Mama and me that I knew would change our relationship forever. And the change would be all for the better.
Mama squeezed my hand. “You’re on the right track now, Wanda Jo. You’re going to do very well when you get back into a shop.” She stood and carefully scooted the chair beneath the table. “I know you will. And I’m proud of you.”
The unexpected praise brought tears to my eyes. I bit my lip to keep them from spilling down both cheeks.
Almost as an afterthought, she pulled a yellowed envelope from the pocket of her smock. “It’s yours now. Yours and Olivia’s.”
I knew, without opening it, what was inside. “Are you sure?” I managed, my voice only breaking a little.
She nodded, hazel eyes shining a bit. “I’m moving on now too.”
I nodded, although I wasn’t entirely sure of her meaning. “I love you, Mama.”
“I love you too, baby.”
And then she quickly disappeared up the stairs, leaving me holding the deed to the cottage that would become a home for Olivia and me.
Chapter Twelve
“Well, they do say time flies when you’re having fun,” Olivia gushed as she inserted the key into the lock of our new front door.
I had to admit she was right; the past week had indeed flown by. For my part, I’d been doing the same double duty with days at school and diner shifts at night. But Olivia’s life had changed drastically as she adjusted to her own unique brand of double duty.
Now her nights were spent working in the kitchen at the Dew Drop with Val’s daughter, Kate, whipping up enough baked goods to fill the front display cases. Her days had been spent here, frequently with Sam. And frankly, I couldn’t recall a time when I’d ever seen her happier.
“So what do you think?” Olivia bounced on her sneaker-clad toes as she swung the front door open wide.
“Wow!” I gasped as I took my first glance around the interior since childhood. I stepped across the threshold of the two-bedroom, one-bath cottage and turned in a slow half-circle. “Wow,” I repeated.
“It’s great, isn’t it?”
“Oh, honey. You’ve both done a wonderful job.”
And they had. The cottage my father had started back in the day, and never finished, looked like a home and not a repository for family castoffs, for the first time in my memory.
Boxes of yellowed newspapers and water-stained magazines had been cleared away. Ditto for the crates and bags of clothes and odd assorted household items that had been stowed here for that day when they might come in handy.
Even the various discarded and thoroughly rusted tools that had once littered the floor were gone.
And what remained was, in a word, wonderful.
There was an eclectic mishmash of furniture, including a small sofa and matching recliner upholstered in worn harvest gold dominating the living room. Two small end tables and a coffee table, each freshly refinished, sat nearby. There was a small jumble of lamps, some castoff plates of various patterns that would look lovely hanging above the sofa, and a few framed prints featuring warm country scenes. There were other assorted necessities peeking from bags and boxes neatly piled toward the room’s center.
In short, we had all the makings of a home here.
“Can you believe these were just buried in one of those bags, under a ton of old clothes?” Olivia held up a beautifully hand-stitched Dresden Plate quilt worked in the sherbet colors of 1930s feed sacks. “There’s a whole bunch of them.” She patted a large green storage bag resting on the sofa.
I smiled, delighted to see her enthusiasm.
“Oh!” Olivia pulled a long bolt of fabric from another bag. “I almost forgot. Look. It’s just perfect for slipcovers.” She unrolled a length of green-and-cream plaid.
I grinned, happy that I’d gone to the trouble of packing and shipping my ancient yet completely trustworthy Singer sewing machine ahead of us.
I left Olivia to re-roll the fabric and took a quick tour. She and Sam had certainly been busier than the proverbial beavers. And Sam had been more than correct when he’d said it wouldn’t take much to fix the place up.
A bit of primer and paint to cover the drywall, some tile for the kitchen and bathroom floors, and carpet remnants for elsewhere were all we’d needed. And fortunately for me, the cost of such things had been minimal.
With each step I saw further possibilities. A cheerful print cushion for the window seat in Olivia’s bedroom. Bright curtains hanging from the freshly cleaned windows. The quilts Olivia had found, once cleaned, draped across the beds and sofa back. The numerous built-in bookshelves stained a warm mahogany and filled with our books.
Oh, yes, this cottage was going to make a fine, cozy home for us.
By the time I’d arrived back in the living room, I was as enthusiastic as Olivia. And not just about our new home.
I pulled a worn, blue velvet box from my shirt pocket and held it out. “I know we usually go shopping for your first day of school outfit.” I paused as she accepted the box. “But this year I wanted you to have something special. It’s not new…”
Olivia smiled broadly. “That doesn’t matter.” She opened the box. “Oh, Mama,” she sighed. “It’s beautiful.”
“Your grandma gave it to me when I started my sophomore year of high school.”
Olivia threw her arms around m
e. “Thank you so much. It’s perfect.” She stepped back, gently fingering the charms attached to the sterling silver bracelet. Her eyes shone. “These are for cheerleading, right?”
I nodded. “The megaphone was the one your grandma attached to it first. The other two are for my junior and senior years on the varsity squad. The blow dryer is for graduating and passing State Board.” I tapped a miniature sterling silver mixer. “And this is to commemorate your first job.”
Olivia sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I love it. It’s totally perfect. Can I wear it?”
“Sure.”
As I finished securing the clasp, there was a knock at the front door, followed by, “Anybody home?”
“C’mon in,” I called to Val and her brood.
“The first wave has arrived,” Val announced as she came through the door dressed in jeans and an oversized purple T-shirt. “And we’re supplied. But gifts first.” She gave a chin nod toward the festively wrapped parcel atop the nearly suitcase-sized plastic container in her arms.
I took the package and raised a brow.
“Call it an early housewarming present,” she said as I tore off the wrapping.
“Oh, Val. It’s beautiful!” I shook out the length of perfectly crocheted, cream-colored afghan. “You are so talented.”
Val shrugged. “I’ll be doing sweaters for all fifty of my future cats. I figured I’d better get back in practice.” She shifted the container once again. “Please tell me you’ve got the power on.”
I nodded, handing the afghan over for Olivia to admire as I led the way to the kitchen while trying not to gape at the container of potato salad Val carried, not to mention the two large cardboard boxes each of her kids toted.
“Are we expecting an invasion?” I queried.
“Could be. One never really knows. But I’ve learned it’s always best to be well supplied in the eats department when men are going to be working.”