by Lynne Hugo
“Mother? Are you all right?”
Still no answer. “Mother! Are you sick?” I was alarmed. Even when I knelt next to her and used her head to block the sun from my eyes, her face looked gaunt, the clenched jaw emphasizing the hollows of her eyes and cheekbones. A button was missing from the chest of her faded blouse, some kind of a stain to the left above that. I knelt next to her and picked up the rough, short-nailed hand stiff in the cushion of her lap. She roughly jerked it away.
“Don’t you touch me. What are you here for?”
“Mother, we talked yesterday. Remember?” Indeed we had talked on the phone five times in the two weeks since I’d returned to school, and she’d been cheerful enough. Nothing had ever been said about the scene before I’d gone back to college, but I’d been grateful enough for her alacrity that I’d not questioned it. As for me, as for what I’d done, I wasn’t equipped to handle the implications. They could have shadowed, eclipsed, everything I had to believe to keep going. I treated them as I would any undetonated explosive device; I skirted them by a wide empty margin.
“No. I didn’t talk to you,” she said flatly.
It was impossible she didn’t remember. “Honestly, Mother. I’m a little later than I said I’d be, and I’m sorr…”
“No. I talked to my daughter, not some stranger who sneaks around behind my back.” Accusation and conviction clipped the consonants. I wore a new jersey top Mrs. Mairson had had delivered from Bloomingdale’s yesterday because, she said, it matched my eyes and “I’ve always wanted a daughter to buy for.” I’d worn traces of eyeliner, subtle green shadow and mascara Sandy had chosen when she helped me dress for the Russian Tea Room. Even my nails were longer, coated with a pale polish, and my hair was brushed out unrestrained, the way Evan loved it. How could I have been so stupid as to show up at home like this? As if she might have said I looked pretty?
“I haven’t done anything behind your back.” I don’t believe I even flushed when this rolled out of my mouth, smooth as pudding. It was a marker of either how far I’d come or how low I’d sunk. It wasn’t the makeup at all, I thought suddenly, but the flush and scent of sex, as unwashable as a soul. Either that or it was the shouts of my mind, audible after all, as the belt in my hand had risen and fell.
“No? That isn’t what your future mother-in-law had to say this morning.” She kept her head turned away as if the sight of me sickened her.
“What?” I couldn’t figure out what to deny quickly enough.
She snapped her head around to stare me down, blue ice-eyed. “Oh, yes. I suspect you know the one. She called to say how much they liked you, how delighted they were that you and her son were…how did she say it?…oh, yes…making plans, and what a wonderful match you are.”
Panic began to flood me like a broken water main. Had Evan called his parents and told them he’d given me an engagement ring? Had that spurred his mother to call mine? I’d told them I lived in Malone, Connecticut, but surely if Evan had called his parents this morning, he would have told them I was on my way to tell my mother. We’d told them the morning after Evan proposed, but they knew my mother didn’t know yet. Maybe because I was on a later train, the wires had somehow been crossed? My mind was wild, racing, frantic.
“Wait, Mother. What exactly did she say?” I angled for time. “I don’t really know what’s going on here.”
She gave a snort of disgust or disbelief or both. “I told you what she said. Apparently you and Evan have plans you haven’t bothered to discuss with your mother.”
I had to risk it. Forcing myself to look at her, I said, “Mother, I think I know what happened. You know, I’d accepted the invitation to visit them before…uh, before I went back to school. Evan mentioned to his parents—remember, they didn’t even know we were dating until a few weeks ago—in sort of a lighthearted way that there might be a future in this.” I paused, as if figuring it out. “I think his mother must have caught that ball and run for a touchdown with it. I didn’t want to embarrass Evan in front of his parents, but later I told him I’d have to discuss it with you, and that he might be getting too serious for me. She’s very nice, Mother, but maybe a little overly enthusiastic.” The die was cast.
“She did sound a little gushy. But she certainly gave the impression that you and Evan were, as she put it, making plans. And she wanted to know if I’d talked to you about it.”
I frantically laid track even while the train was barreling down after me ready to derail. “Here’s what I think it is. You know how Evan’s a little older than I am and finished school and all that. I think they just want him to get married, so maybe she just sort of jumps at the smallest thing.”
“I didn’t really think you’d do that to me,” she said, childlike now. Is a sick person always innocent in some defining way?
I kept my hand carefully away from my skirt, where the ring was setting fire to my pocket, and smiled as though it were a simple misunderstanding. “I’m so sorry she upset you. Of course, I had no idea what she was thinking. How about I make us some ice tea? What needs doing around here? I’m all yours.”
“The garden is a mess.” The tension had drained from her voice. She so wanted, needed it all not to be true.
“Well, I’ll get you some tea and then I’ll go see what I can do about it.” I headed for the kitchen, trying to breathe normally, not reveal the shaking legs that felt like sticks too fragile to carry me. I got the tea, smiled at her and went outside to the garden, still trying to fill my lungs. Then, I saw how close I’d really come, and couldn’t imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t risked the lie. My mind reeled, darkened like a fading screen trying to black out the memory of what she’d done to me and I to her the last time I’d been home. Every zinnia, every single one, had been uprooted and tossed into a heap of chaos, the bright, full blossoms in a tangle of dirt and roots, freshly begun to die.
20
THE FIRST TIME MOTHER went to the bathroom after I came in from cleaning up the garden, I took my engagement ring from my pocket and zipped it into the bottom of a compartment in my purse with tissue, pen, lipstick and a roll of Life Savers scrunched together over it. I set to dusting, cleaning the bathroom, washing dishes crusted with old, unidentifiable remains, billing her students’ parents, getting groceries into the house. I didn’t allow myself to think about Evan. I knew he’d be worried that I hadn’t called him, but he’d know enough not to call me. He’d guess something was wrong. I had to stay focused on shoring her up; even thinking about Evan could have been dangerous. I could feel her watching me, listening.
I didn’t even put the ring back on my finger until I’d changed trains in New Haven. It was as if my life had split into two: where I had to be, where I wanted to be. I’d spent the first part of the trip trying to figure out how to proceed with Mother. From New Haven to New York, I concentrated on Evan, how to tell him that I hadn’t told Mother, and why.
WE WERE IN THE COFFEE shop right outside Grand Central on Forty-second Street, where Evan had met me. “We just have to start all over,” I said to him. My hair felt stifling, too heavy on my neck and shoulders and I gathered it in my hands wishing I could fasten it out of my way. “She couldn’t have begun to handle it if it had turned out to be true after your mother’s call.”
“I guess I can see any woman’s mother being a little hurt that the man’s parents knew and she didn’t, but couldn’t you just tell her that you wanted to surprise her with the ring?” He was annoyed or disappointed or both, trying not to show it.
Suddenly I was exhausted. I leaned back in the booth and closed my eyes, too heavy with uncried tears to hold open. “I’ve told you she’s…she’s got serious problems, emotional problems. You don’t know…how sick she is. You know I have to take care of her. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, but I’ve tried and tried to explain to you.” Frustration must have been on my face or in my voice, because Evan stood so he could reach across the table to get a hold of my arm, then my hand. He pulle
d it up onto the table where he could hold it.
“I’m so sorry my mother called. I had no idea she was going to do that. I hadn’t mentioned the problems to them, it didn’t seem the time. I should have thought of it. I’ll take care of it, see that nothing like that happens again.” I hated the thought of Evan trying to explain to them. They might have kept on liking me. “Shouldn’t we try to get some help for her, a doctor? Not that I think you haven’t done that.”
I knew exactly how my mother would react to any suggestion something was wrong with her, so I went around the question, circling back to the issue at hand. “The truth is it was probably too soon to tell her anyway. We had an incident of sorts right before I came back to school, after she saw us kissing in the kitchen, when I was on your lap, you know, when she was giving a lesson, and she didn’t take it well. I probably wasn’t being realistic about telling her this weekend.”
I watched the struggle on Evan’s face. How bizarre it must seem to him. Neither of us was fourteen, or even sixteen. If we wanted to kiss, whatever we wanted to do, wasn’t it our business? What did this have to do with taking care of a sick woman, even a mentally ill one, if I could bring myself to using those words?
“Look, whether I understand all that or not, I trust your judgment. You’re the one who’s been living with this all these years. I promised I’d help and I will. You tell me what we need to do.”
“Oh, Evan. Oh, sweetheart, thank you. I’m sorry it’s like this. I’m so sorry, but thank you. I do love you.”
BY THE END OF THE WEEK, I had what I thought was a plan. Thursday night, we had dinner in his apartment. “I’ll go home by myself again this weekend. This time I’ll mention your name.”
His fork stopped midway and went back down. “You didn’t even mention me last weekend?”
“Evan, you said…”
“I’m sorry. Okay. What will be stage two, if mentioning my name is stage one?”
“I need to tell you more of what happened.” I told him about the zinnias, how close to the edge I’d seen her. I didn’t tell him what had happened the last time she’d gone over the edge, because then he’d see me, too: complicit, guilty, dirtied by rage and the infliction of pain. He might see all the way back to blue capsules, a glass of clear water pierced by a straw of evil, not mercy.
I’d put more than enough on his plate already. “It scared me,” I finished. “I’ve seen that look on her before…sometimes she’d disappear for days when Roger and I were kids.”
“What?” His eyebrows made diagonal lines of shock, incredulity, anger. I’d told him too much now.
“Oh, we were old enough,” I covered. “That’s not the point. It’s just that she can really lose control of herself.”
“Does she lose control of herself when she loses control of you?”
Bingo, I thought, even though I’d not once realized it that clearly myself. Finally I said, “Well, that may be some of it. But it’s because she’s so frightened of losing me. I’m all she has.”
“Are you under her control, or do you just try to keep her believing you are?”
Truth. “I used to be. Completely. But have you noticed my new jewelry?” I gestured to the ring on my left hand. “And stage two will be to ask her if you can come with me sometime soon. I’ll say you’ve been calling, and that you mentioned how much you’d like to see the two of us again.”
“So it’s yes to the second part, that you’re going to try to keep her believing you are. I don’t know, Ruthie.” He shook his head, not in disagreement, but in concern. “Push is going to knock on shove’s door sooner or later.” He wadded up his napkin and tossed it down.
“I’ll handle it,” I said, and leaned over the table to kiss him as we stood up to go. Her control of me wasn’t an illusion. Not by a long shot. But I spent Thursday night with Evan, sleeping in a T-shirt of his, my underwear washed out and draped around his bathroom to dry. He ran out to the drugstore and bought me a toothbrush and a hairbrush, which I pointedly left there when, a little late, I took off for school the next morning.
I PROCEEDED WITH STAGE one of the plan. Saturday afternoon, after I’d thoroughly cleaned, caught up the laundry and waited for the best mood she was likely to be in, I said, “Oh, I meant to tell you, Evan called.”
She tensed, I thought. “What did he want?”
“Oh, he wanted to have dinner. I was too busy, though, getting settled in with classes. He said he’d call back.”
“Are you going to go?” I knew that her phrasing it as a question was largely a trap. This was vintage Mother.
“What do you think I should do?”
Was I imagining it or did that answer relieve her? “As long as it’s just a dinner, I suppose. Don’t stay out late, though. And stick to a public place.”
THE NEXT WEEKEND, IT was she who brought it up before I had identified a good moment. “So did you go out to dinner with that…Evan?” Another trap. If I said yes, then I’d have been hiding it, having not told her immediately myself. I was becoming wily, slipping ahead of her like a cat in the jungle, guarding against any misstep.
“Not yet. He called, but I told him next week was better. You know I would have told you.”
She thought I didn’t see it, but I did: she smiled.
The next Wednesday I called her. “Well, I’m having dinner with Evan tomorrow night.”
“That’s nice. Remember, stick to public places. Make him send you back to the dorm in a taxi, too.”
“Oh, this won’t be such a big deal. I think we’re just going to a place nearby, and keep it short. I have a lot of studying to do.”
“Good. You remember what’s important.”
Evan was disappointed, a little impatient at this pace of “bringing her around.” My days were filled with classes, and I was doing a practicum at the hospital, too. Of course, he worked during the days anyway. The weekends, which we could have spent together, I was in Connecticut, doing repair work. We fell into a pattern of spending at least two nights a week in his apartment. We’d have dinner, sometimes carryin, sometimes—if my schoolwork wasn’t too backed up—we’d cook. More and more of my things ended up at Evan’s: a nightgown, extra makeup, a few clean blouses, two sweaters. He gave me a drawer in his dresser, a side of his closet, a shelf in the medicine cabinet.
“It kills me to give up every Saturday and Sunday,” he said on Friday morning, when he had to leave for work before I did for school. “I need you, too, you know. We can’t go on like this.”
I still didn’t feel like he was threatening me, though. Not setting an ultimatum. So I just said, “I know. I’m sorry. I’m doing the best I can.”
MAYBE IT WAS FEAR OF an ultimatum, though, because the next day I went ahead and tried. “Mother, Evan called again,” I said, over the canned chicken chow mein we were having for dinner. “He said he would really like to see the two of us again, and wondered if he could come here to visit sometime.”
“What does he want with me?” Somehow she got it into her tone, though the words hung like silent ghosts in the air: I know damn well what he wants with you.
“I think he just likes you.” What a fine, fine liar I was becoming.
“Harrumph.” A snort.
“Do you think it would be okay? I’m sure he’d fix the bathroom door.” A hinge had been broken for quite a while, and though I thought I could fix it, this was better. “He’d probably help with the storm windows, too. You know it’s hard on your back to hand them to me.”
“Well, if he’ll do that, I guess he can come. I don’t want him here the whole weekend, though.”
“Oh, I’m sure he didn’t expect anything like that.”
BETWEEN THE FIRST OF October and the middle of November, Evan washed and hung the storm windows, turned the garden over, fixed the bathroom door, changed the oil in Mother’s car and replaced one of the back porch steps. He bought and hung a storm door in place of the rickety screen, which was all the Jensens had ever had there.
He’d come three times, each time carefully not touching me, each time paying a good deal of attention to Mother. Mother had begun to flirt with him again, just a little, and finally, when he said, “I’ve got to get going, or I’ll miss that train. Ruthie, could you run me to the station?” on the Saturday night of the third visit, she came out.
“Oh, why don’t you just stay and go back tomorrow with Ruth?”
“Mrs. Kenley, that’s so kind of you. I’d really like to do that, but I didn’t bring anything with me, and I don’t have a reservation.”
“I see. Of course. Well, next time, then?”
“That would be wonderful. Thank you so much for the invitation.”
In the car, we hugged, exultant. “It’s working! Thank you sweetheart!” I said. His hands looked like he worked in a garage; he’d changed the oil in Mother’s car. I licked two fingers and cleaned a smudge from his face before he got out at the station.
“Hey, don’t thank me. I don’t really mind the work. In the second place, even if I did, you’re worth it. It’s stupid that you have to manipulate just to have your own life…but…well. It’s strange, you know? She can seem so nice. Sometimes you’d never know anything was wrong.” Those last words worried me; there was so much not on display. “What train will you be on tomorrow?”
“I’ll try to be on the one that gets in at 6:06,” I said, knowing it would be a struggle to get away midafternoon as I’d have to.
“Ah, I’d hoped for earlier, but I’ll be there.”
“You don’t have to meet me.”
“Don’t be slow-witted. How else could I kidnap you and make sure we spend the night together?” he laughed.