Never Tell A Lie

by Gail Schimmel

  Once I push send on that, I’m shaking. At least by comparison, the WhatsApp to April is easy:

  Coffee tomorrow?

  April comes back first:

  Great! Your place with kids?

  I send a thumbs-up.

  My mother is slower to see the message. I keep checking and it’s one tick for ages – so it hasn’t even reached her phone. It must be off, or maybe my dad somehow gave me the wrong number. I have one eye on the phone all day, as I try to work and fetch Django and get on with normal things. Finally, in the afternoon, I see that she has read the message, and almost as soon as that happens, I see she is typing.

  Sean has told me that you fetch Django around lunch. Perhaps we could meet for breakfast on Monday after you take him to school. But anything that suits you. I cannot wait.

  I feel strangely violated by the words ‘Sean has told me’ as if this is a perfectly ordinary parental exchange, information about me and my son being traded between my parents. I want to answer saying, ‘Well, Sean hasn’t told me a bloody thing for the last thirty-four years, so you’re one up on me.’

  Instead, I say, ‘Okay.’ And I name a place that suits me.

  I had hoped that after this decision, I would feel free, but I don’t. Suddenly, Monday seems very far away. I wonder why she didn’t suggest seeing me over the weekend. Surely that would have made more sense. Most people are more available over the weekend than on a Monday. Unless she didn’t want to see me with Django, so she was being sensitive to my childcare needs. But what would she know about childcare needs? And if she thought about it, she’d know that I have my dad. I can feel myself talking in circles in my head – is Monday a sign that she is incredibly sensitive, or doesn’t want to see me? I guess she reckons after thirty-four years, what’s another weekend? I pull myself up short. I have to stop overanalysing this. I will see her on Monday, and it is good that I have a weekend to gather my thoughts.

  I message my dad and tell him that I’m seeing her. I’m not sure how he’ll feel, and he just sends a thumbs-up. I don’t know what to make of that. Instead, I tell Stacey and Joshua, who both express pleasure that I have taken the step, and both offer to come with me if I want them to. I don’t, but I feel good that they would be willing to.

  When I see April the next morning, the bruise has faded, but it’s still visible. April seems to be dressed up a bit, not that she’s a woman who ever looks exactly casual. But she’s wearing one of her high-collared white shirts and jeans that somehow look smarter than any jeans I ever owned, with a statement belt and a big bag. Her hair is pushed back with sunglasses, and she looks tired, but that might be the bruise.

  I have been awake most of the night – half the time deciding how I will address the issue of the conflicting stories with April, and half the time thinking about what I will say to my mother. April is the easier problem, and I decide that I am just going to be straight out about this.

  For once, she arrives on time, and I hug her reflexively, happy to see her. The kids go to Django’s room; he has a new game on his iPad that he wants to show Zach, and Reenie follows the boys, dragging a doll behind her.

  I fuss around, getting tea and some cake that I picked up at the home industry store yesterday. Lemon drizzle, which I know is April’s favourite. Finally, we are seated on the veranda, and I have checked that the kids can’t hear us.

  ‘April,’ I say, ‘I’m just going to ask you something, and I mean no offence, but I don’t want to be that friend who turns a blind eye.’

  April opens her mouth to answer, but I rush on.

  ‘Is Leo hitting you?’

  April looks down, and I feel my heart in my throat. Then she looks at me.

  ‘What do you think, Mary?’ she says, almost combatively. ‘Does Leo seem like a man who would hit his wife?’

  I choose my words carefully. ‘No,’ I say. ‘But that doesn’t mean anything. It’s not always the men we think it will be, and that’s why I’m asking.’

  She sighs. ‘Of course he isn’t,’ she says. ‘I was worried you’d think this. But really, I just slipped.’

  I want to let it go; it would be easier. ‘On the kitchen tiles, up the stairs?’ I say.

  ‘I can see why that sounds mad,’ she says. ‘But isn’t that the way? Isn’t it that most of these stupid accidents actually sound like lies?’

  ‘I guess,’ I say. It is true that I can think of a few examples of things that have happened to me or Django that read like a comedy of errors. I’ve had more than one visit to the emergency room with Django where I’ve wondered if they believe me.

  ‘I don’t want to be the friend who turns her back,’ I say.

  ‘I know,’ she says. ‘I know that’s why you messaged to chat on Thursday.’

  I laugh. ‘Actually, that’s not why I wanted to chat. I was having a crisis of my own. But it’s okay.’

  I don’t know if April quite absorbs this, because she says, ‘The thing you need to understand is that Leo has been through a lot. He’s a very complicated man. But he isn’t hitting me, okay. He gets angry, but he’s got his reasons. He’s had a very hard life.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘You know you can talk to me though, right?’

  ‘Thanks,’ says April. ‘I appreciate that, Mary. Really, I do. My marriage isn’t easy. He’s very . . . specific. But I’m okay. We’re okay. Really.’

  ‘Right,’ I say. I have to leave it alone now. I hope she’s telling the truth.

  But after she leaves, I don’t feel happy about it. And, I realise, I never told her about the drama with my mother. It just didn’t seem to come up, despite being the biggest thing on my mind. Maybe I don’t want to burden her with my stuff. She has enough of her own. Or maybe I don’t want to know that she would find it a burden.

  Meeting my mother is much, much harder than meeting April.

  I don’t sleep the Sunday night before. Joshua has slept over to give me support, but his presence in my bed is a pain – if he wasn’t there I would be able to toss and turn, or turn on the light and read, or descend into a Twitter wormhole on my phone. But his bulk next to me acts as a brake – I don’t want to disturb him. Travis used to freak out if he didn’t get a good night’s sleep, and it was always my fault. Joshua has never complained, but I know he has a busy week ahead. His #metoo case had judgement reserved, and they are expecting judgement to be handed down this week. And he has another big matter going to court, involving a child abuse case, where Leo is actually acting as an expert witness.

  Eventually, I realise I’m not going to sleep, so I get up and go through to the living room. I tuck a blanket around me on the couch and try to distract myself with a mindless game on my phone. After about half an hour, Joshua comes padding through. I feel myself tense – I’ve woken him.

  ‘Can’t sleep?’ he says.

  ‘Too nervous,’ I say. ‘Sorry I woke you.’

  ‘No, no,’ he says. ‘I also can’t sleep. I keep thinking how I would feel in your shoes. It’s massive.’

  ‘You can’t sleep because of my thing?’

  ‘Well, it’s big,’ says Joshua. ‘You’re basically meeting your mother for the first time in thirty-five years. And finding out her side of the story.’

  ‘The truth,’ I say.

  ‘No,’ says Joshua. ‘Her side. There is never a truth. There are always different stories, and the truth is a murky area lying between them. Don’t forget that.’

  ‘Such wisdom at . . .’ I glance at my watch. ‘Four a.m.’

  ‘Well,’ says Joshua. ‘It’s my wisdom or . . .’ He wiggles his eyebrows at me.

  ‘Early-morning nookie?’ I say. I stand up. ‘Bring it on, tiger.’

  Joshua laughs, and we almost run down the passage, back to bed. Maybe sharing a bed isn’t as bad as I thought.

  I arrive five minutes late, on purpose. I want my mother to be there first; I cannot stand the idea of sitting waiting for her, wondering if she might not show. Because no matter that I now
know it wasn’t how I thought it was, my reality of my mother is an absence. Of course, five minutes might not be enough. If she decides not to come, then being late won’t change that. But she is there.

  I see her through the window. I have seen photos of her when she was younger, and I know that she looks a lot like me. She’s in her mid-sixties now though, and I wasn’t sure if I’d recognise her. But I do. She’s sitting facing the door, and her hands are clasped on the table in front of her. In my imagination, my mother is always dressed like a Fifties housewife. I imagined her in a floral housedress, with her hair tied back with a scarf. Like something out of I Love Lucy. This fantasy makes no sense. I was born in the Eighties. Maybe my grandmother would have looked like a character from a Fifties movie, but not my mother. But still, I am surprised by her outfit. Jeans and a soft leather jacket. Her hair is up in a ponytail, and she wears glasses. She’s nicely made up, but not obviously so. She looks younger than I expected. She looks nicer than I expected. She keeps looking around, like maybe I am already there and she’s missed me, and then she glances over at the door.

  As soon as she sees me, she goes very, very pale and then very, very red. I have been told that this is what I do in moments of extreme anxiety. My father has mentioned it, but he’s never told me that I get it from my mother. I feel like a life I thought was whole is suddenly missing hundreds of pieces. In front of me is the person who can put them back together.

  I walk over, and she stands up.

  ‘Mary?’ she says. As if I could be anyone else.

  I don’t know what to say. Do I call her Mom or Lorraine? I just nod. I can’t speak.

  ‘Oh, Mary,’ she says, reaching out and holding my arms. ‘I have wished for this day forever. Just look at you! Look how lovely you are!’

  ‘I look like you,’ I manage, in a voice that sounds like maybe I’m dying.

  My mother nods her head vehemently. ‘You do,’ she says. ‘And like my mom. Our genes are strong. Django looks like you too.’

  ‘And so, like you,’ I say.

  Now neither of us know what to do, where to start.

  ‘Sit,’ says my mother. Mom? Lorraine? You?

  I sit, and she sits across from me.

  ‘I don’t know where to start this,’ she says. ‘I practised so many speeches last night, but nothing could have prepared me for what I’m feeling.’

  She’s holding her hands tight together in front of her. They are clenched so tightly that the knuckles are white. She is really nervous about meeting me.

  I’d imagined that we would make small talk. That I would ask her where she lived and what she did, and that maybe I would work up, after a number of meetings and conversations, to the elephant in the room. But apparently not. Apparently I’m going to just walk right up to the elephant.

  ‘Why did you leave me?’ I say.

  ‘What has Sean told you?’ asks my mother, and I like the way she didn’t even flinch at the question.

  I tell her the story. First that I thought she was dead. For years. For ever. Then finding the postcard. And then finding out that she’d left. That my dad said she was depressed, but that I couldn’t really understand how she left me.

  ‘Oh God,’ says my mother when I finish. ‘I just can’t believe he let you think that I was dead. When he told me, I just couldn’t believe it.’

  She’s turning red again. I nod.

  ‘I didn’t think he’d do that.’ She looks like she might cry.

  ‘Maybe it was better for me,’ I say. ‘Better than a mother who left me. My dad has always done his best for me. He said that you thought it was better.’

  ‘That’s what I told him,’ she said. ‘I don’t know though.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re both right,’ I say, in a small tight voice. ‘It was better than knowing what you really did.’

  Silence stretches tight between us. I don’t know; maybe she will get up and leave. Maybe I have scared her away.

  ‘I guess I had that coming,’ she says.

  I am impressed that she takes this, that she acknowledges what she did. I think about what Joshua said about the nature of truth. ‘Tell me how it was for you,’ I say. ‘Tell me why you left me.’

  ‘Okay,’ says my mother. ‘You deserve that. But before I start, let’s order breakfast, so we don’t get disturbed.’

  I don’t think that I can eat, really, but I go through the motions, looking at the menu and choosing what I want. When the waiter comes, my mom orders first.

  ‘I’ll have the avo toast with poached egg, please,’ she says. ‘Toast wholewheat. Egg soft. Hazelnut latte.’

  I stare at her.

  ‘What?’ she says.

  ‘That’s exactly – and I mean exactly – what I planned to order,’ I say.

  We hold each other’s eyes for a moment, and then she smiles at the waiter.

  ‘I guess that’s two,’ she says. The waiter smiles and leaves.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Tell me your version of the story.’

  ‘The first thing I need to explain,’ says my mother, ‘is how badly we wanted you. I tried to get pregnant for a really long time. Even though I was so young, and we theoretically had lots of time, we’d wanted lots of kids and we’d wanted to have them young. So it felt like the end of the world. Your dad wouldn’t have any tests done, and the doctors said that they couldn’t see anything obvious wrong with me. I took Clomid, but that didn’t work. And Sean wouldn’t do anything that required his cooperation. I’d almost given up, and then suddenly, I was pregnant.’

  This is all news to me.

  ‘Dad never said.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have,’ she says. ‘He just wouldn’t talk about those years of trying. And what they did to me.’ She breathes carefully, then carries on. ‘When you were born, I got postnatal depression. I would never have expected it – I was so, so happy to have you. But I now know that it was quite normal, after all those years, and with your father the way he is.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘He couldn’t understand the sort of help that I needed. He told me to pull myself together and stop crying. I know that he thought he was being supportive, but I just felt so misunderstood and alone. I’d been alone in the years before, when I lay awake, scared I’d never have a baby, and I was alone again. When you were about six months old, I tried to kill myself and spent six weeks in a psychiatric ward at Tara. I got good therapy and good medication – it wasn’t the dark ages. And then I went home.’

  ‘To me.’

  ‘Yes, to you. And finally I could enjoy you. And I did. Oh my God, I did.’

  ‘But then you left.’

  ‘Sean never forgave me for being depressed. And for the suicide attempt. He couldn’t understand it, and so he couldn’t understand that I was better. He thought I would do it again. He watched me like a hawk, and if I looked at all sad, he’d refuse to leave me alone with you.’

  She picks up her coffee but puts it down without sipping.

  ‘I loved you and I loved being a mom, but it was also hard,’ she says, and I can see she’s getting quite upset. ‘I’ve spoken to other women who’ve had babies after fertility treatment since then and it seems to be a pattern. We think that because we wanted the baby so badly, it will all be easy. But it’s not. And Sean took any sign of me being tired or down as a sign that I was suicidal. I wasn’t. That was over. But the more he made me feel that it might happen again, the more I started to wonder. Maybe I wasn’t better, I thought. Maybe I would go crazy at any point, like Sean seemed to think. And then I started obsessing about the idea that I would hurt you. I’d lie awake at night, playing out scenarios where I would turn my back and you would be stolen; or drown; or choke. Or that I would go crazy and deliberately hurt you. I became obsessed. Obviously I now know that I should have gone back to the doctors and had my medication adjusted. But I was so consumed with the idea that I was about to hurt you, and Sean seemed to think so too, that it was all I could think about.’
r />   ‘So you left.’

  ‘I thought it was the best thing for you. The time after that was very dark. I stopped taking my antidepressants, because what was the point? And I sank under again. Only now I was depressed and obsessed with the idea that some harm would still come to you, and that it would be my fault. I left the country, eventually, because I got it into my head I would harm you unless I was very far away from you.’

  This time she manages a small sip of coffee.

  ‘I tried to kill myself again, but a neighbour in London found me. And then I got proper help. Lots of medication and lots of therapy, and I realised that I’d left you for all the wrong reasons. But by then, years had passed. I came back to South Africa. I actually stalked you and Sean for a bit – and you were happy. And Sean was coping. And I decided that I had done enough harm. So I went back to London.’

  ‘Didn’t you realise what it would be like for me, growing up with no mother?’ I ask. I know I must sound combative. ‘Didn’t you realise you’d made a terrible call?’

  ‘When I went back to England, I started a new life where no one knew anything about me. I married again. A nice man, a good man. But he never knew about you. I didn’t know how to tell him that I abandoned my child. I never forgave myself and I knew he wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Maybe he would,’ I say. ‘If he loved you, he wouldn’t have had a problem.’ I can feel anger rising like a bitter wave through my body. My mother has sat quietly in England, happily married, while I have been without her. I try to understand. I will myself to understand. I want her to be the good one in this story. But I can’t.

  ‘Well,’ says my mom, ‘I’ll never know. He died last month. And as soon as I had done everything I needed to do, I came back to South Africa. To find you. As long as my husband was alive, I felt like I couldn’t seek you out; like then I would not only have abandoned you, I’d be abandoning him too. But he died. And as if it was fate, the day after I came back, my friend Rose in the UK sent me a screen shot of your message on the Facebook page. But I still wasn’t sure if seeing me would be good for you. And so I contacted Sean.’