A Mother's Love

by Mary Morris

  My mother and Dottie would sit up in the evening, smoking, sipping Cokes, talking about what it was they imagined their lives would have been if they’d done things differently. In those years Dottie had a nice Airstream, and they lived in it through several states, but mostly in Reno and Vegas. Jamie had been born in that trailer. So my mother and Dottie talked about their lives and about what would have happened if they hadn’t married and had children. How they would have become models or dancers or whatever it was they thought they wanted to be. At times I think Dottie felt guilty, as if somehow she’d planted ideas in my mother’s head, seeds that had given her the idea to run away, but I always told Dottie this wasn’t true. Even before she met Dottie, my mother was gone.

  It was Dottie who saved me. “I began with food,” she said. “Cooking things kids just can’t say no to, like fried chicken and hot dogs, grilled cheese, and thick malteds you eat with a spoon. My own mashed potatoes and biscuits. Not that her father didn’t feed her; he did. He just didn’t make the things children love.” From food she moved on to schedules. A time to get up, a time to eat, to study, to take a bath. Everything for Dottie was done by the clock. “Ivy,” she’d say, “it’s six-thirty; you should be doing your homework now.”

  Dottie didn’t move in right away. It was a process that took place over many months. First there was Jamie to think about, and then there was me. And of course Dottie was not stupid, and living with my father had its drawbacks. I’m not sure, even now, how she put up with it, because we all knew that if my mother walked in the door, even years after she had gone, he’d have taken her back.

  Shortly after Dottie came to live with us—which was about two years after my mother was gone—she told me the story about the child she had given away. When Dottie got pregnant by her childhood boyfriend in the rugged farming community where she’d grown up, outside Bakersfield, the boy acted as if he didn’t know what she was talking about. In fact, they had been making love in the back seat of his father’s pickup since they were fourteen. During her pregnancy the boy didn’t seem to know her. Dottie gave up the little girl when she was three days old and thought that was the end of it.

  But one day five years later the boy, who was now a grown man with a family of his own, phoned in tears to say that the people who had adopted their little girl had given her back. He sobbed as he spoke, begging Dottie to forgive him. He told her that the child was defective somehow and the people had returned her, the way you would a car that was a lemon. He knew this because a friend of his family heard about it, but they didn’t know where the child had been taken.

  Whenever Dottie spoke of the girl she’d given away, and then of her years going from orphanage to orphanage in eastern California, trying to track her down, I’d curl against her body and let her stroke my hair. Dottie would lie with me and smoke, blowing thin blue circles around my head. “Ivy, I’m glad I found you,” she’d say, “because you’ve come to replace the one I gave away.” I was like a gift, she told me, that had been given back to her, and I had to admit that I felt as if I’d been found.

  Sometimes when she tucked me in, I’d ask her to tell me the story again. I made her tell me about the pleading faces of children, their trembling lips, hands that held her. About the ones who ran to her and said, “Mommy, Mommy, please take me home.”

  SEVENTEEN

  THE APARTMENT needed to be fumigated. “Pests,” the landlord said. The whole building was infested. He suggested that I go away for a few days, stay with friends. They would spray on Friday, and I could return after the weekend. I called Patricia at her office, and she said, somewhat hesitantly, that I could stay at her place. I decided to visit museums and see some special exhibits, something I’d been wanting to do anyway, until Patricia got home from work.

  The exterminators were coming at around ten, and I wanted to be out before they arrived. But first I had to feed and dress Bobby. I nursed him early and laid out his clothes. I wanted to shower, so I pulled his portable crib near the bathroom and turned on the mobile. It would play for five minutes, enough, I hoped, for me to jump into the shower. I could hear him cooing, then fussing. “Mommy’s coming,” I called. “Mommy will be right there!”

  The water felt good as it poured over me, hot and relaxing. I closed my eyes and thought that I could stay there a long time. My body, which had been dormant, seemed to wake, and I ran my hands over its length. It was weeks since I’d told Matthew I wouldn’t see him until he signed Bobby’s birth certificate. But now as I tilted my head, letting the water flow over my face, the thought of him came back to me. I could walk out of the shower, and he’d be there, sitting on the bed, aroused. Or, perhaps, impatient for me, he’d open the bathroom door, pull back the shower curtain. He’d take off his clothes and join me, soapy hands coursing over my skin.

  The mobile stopped and Bobby began crying, so I leaped out, covered in suds. Giving the mobile a twist until the plastic giraffe, elephant, and dog turned again to the tune of “It’s a Small World,” I jumped back in the shower to rinse off. When I got out, Bobby was pounding his fists into the mattress. I took off his diaper, and a stream of urine rose, stinging my eyes so that I could not see.

  Wet, naked, with burning eyes, I pinned Bobby to the table and grabbed the towel on my head to wipe my face. I hummed a song my father used to sing, about poor little lambs who’d lost their way, but it was no use. He was in a rage, so I nursed him again, wondering what the exterminators would think when they arrived. Greedily he sucked at my breast.

  At last he grew still, and I raced to fill a small duffel with the changes of clothes we’d need for the weekend. I packed only a few toys. A rattle, a plastic teething ring. A book whose pages were soft, like the fur on a bunny. A sketch pad and novel for me. I could stick this duffel under the seat of the stroller or strap it around the back. Then I filled Bobby’s diaper bag with bottles, soft blankets, as many diapers as could fit. I tried to remember which museums permitted strollers and which ones made you rent a backpack or use a Snugli. I didn’t want to use the Snugli, because Bobby’s weight made my shoulders ache and because I needed to carry all those other things, but I stuffed it in anyway. The Met and the Modern both permitted strollers on off-peak times, so I decided to make my way to the Met.

  I still had to dress Bobby. The flannel playsuit I tried to put him in was too small; the top barely closed. The bottoms rode up at his ankles. Reaching down into the changing table drawers, I pulled out other playsuits, a cotton running suit, pajamas, but they were all the same size. He’d outgrown the presents he’d received when he was born. Already I’d have to buy him new things.

  I found a playsuit slightly bigger than the others, but as I started to put it on, he began to cry. “There, now, hold still.” I wished there were someone I could hand him to, someone who would dress him, clean him, brush his hair, and give him back to me when it was all done. Once again I found myself wondering what had ever made me want this child or made me think I could handle him alone. Again, it seemed that I could crush him with my hands. Instead, I held him down firmly with one hand as I struggled to pull his pants up with the other.

  It was a rainy day, and we headed to the cross-town bus. At the bank I stopped to get cash for the weekend. I withdrew fifty dollars and saw on the slip that I had about five hundred in checking and a thousand or so in savings. I figured we could survive for another two months with that and the money I was earning from Mike, but then I’d need to start making a real living. And I’d have to hire someone to watch Bobby.

  At the bus stop the wind whipped my legs while Bobby banged his fists into the plastic rain cover. His face looked distorted as he pounded. No bus was in sight. I tapped on the outside and together we banged our fists until he began to smile, then laugh. For a few moments we played the punching game, both of us laughing.

  Suddenly the bus pulled up and the driver opened the door. Others went on as I stood, struggling. I managed to get Bobby out of the stroller, but I couldn’
t fold it up because of the rain cover. Impatient New Yorkers glared at me, shaking their heads. The bus driver, a dark man with tired features, watched. I saw him swallow a pill. “You can go ahead,” I said. “I can’t get this thing to fold up.” The driver sighed.

  He put his bus in park, got out of his seat, pushed people out of the way. He grabbed the stroller and carried it onto the bus. I clutched Bobby in one arm and the bag with our belongings in the other. Once on board, I fumbled with my change, dropping I don’t know how much money into the machine, and looked for a seat, only to find there was none. I stood balancing stroller, baby, the shoulder bag, and myself precariously against a pole. Then the driver blared, “We are not moving until the woman with the baby has a place to sit.” A man rose, a sea parted as I made my way into the seat, which was reluctantly offered.

  Faces stared down at me. Faces filled with fatigue or pity. Faces disgusted or wistful, etched with desire or the end of desire. The businessman with a scowl, the young woman with a blank look, the older woman in black who smiled at the baby. As the bus wound its way across town, my eyes closed, I fought to stay awake. What would happen if I did fall asleep? What if I dashed off the bus, about to miss my stop? I recalled the Lichtenstein image with the caption “Oh, God, I left the baby on the bus.” I could see how this might happen. You’re weighed down. You’re carrying too much. It’s one more bundle, after all.

  Or you go to a party, get drunk, leave the child asleep on your friend’s bed. You don’t notice him, sleeping there beside the pile of coats. You just forget, slip back into your former life, the life you had when there was just one person, not two or, for most people, three. How far would you get before you realized you’d left the party without your child? Out the door? Down the stairs? To the house of the man who was taking you home? The next day? Once, I read about a woman in Florida who put her baby in the car seat on the top of the car, packed the car for a vacation, then drove away with the baby on top. The baby was all right, but the mother—would she ever be the same again?

  I managed to get the stroller folded just as the bus was coming to the corner of Seventy-Ninth and Fifth, where I had to get off. I pushed the buzzer for my stop and quickly made my way down. With Bobby in my arms and the rain coming down hard, I struggled to open the stroller. Bobby squirmed, trying to get his face out of the rain.

  At last I tucked him in, though I didn’t bother to strap him, since we were only going across the street. I prayed he wouldn’t slip out. When we reached the Met, I didn’t see the elevator for the handicapped, so I carried the buggy up the steps. Inside the checkroom the attendant glanced at me and said, “If you are planning to see any special exhibits, you must check your stroller.” I groaned. I wanted to see the Impressionist exhibit, which included pieces from private collections that had never been seen before, so I had no choice but to check. I deposited everything but the baby and his diaper bag. Then I put Bobby down on the bank of seats and tucked him into his Snugli, where he went to sleep.

  Slowly I made my way up the grand staircase. At the top I turned left, toward the exhibition hall, and found myself in a room of paintings of the early Christian martyrs and saints.

  I was interested in the faces of those in pain, the expressions of the suffering. The martyred with arrows piercing their breasts, thorns cutting into their skulls. The saint standing in a boiling pot, being flayed alive. In each, the look of serenity affirmed that the suffering of the body could not touch the soul.

  There was something in the eyes that I wanted to capture, to reproduce. I had never quite seen it in this way before, but now I did. Those placid, questioning eyes turned upward. A look I had seen in the eyes of the homeless, the impoverished, the desperate. Fumbling in my purse, I found a pencil and a small notepad and I began to draw, my arms wrapped around my baby’s head.

  I wandered through the galleries, moving from the Middle Ages to Byzantium, then coming out slowly through the Renaissance, and I was about to go into the Nineteenth Century when Bobby woke up. He began to fuss, so I found one of the two restrooms in the Met, where a line snaked along the wall. Though stalls were emptying, the line was long. A group of frail old women wearing little name tags was resting against a wall. There were young mothers with children jumping up and down, clearly in need of going to the bathroom. Behind me was a pregnant black girl who could not have been more than sixteen. When I was pregnant, I had seen them—black, white, Hispanic—still children, really, round as basketballs, about to have children of their own. This girl swayed back and forth, sighing, her bladder about to burst as she rubbed her aching back. I turned and she looked at me, then at Bobby, with inscrutable eyes. I told her to go ahead. I was waiting for one of the handicap stalls.

  I’m not sure when I began using the handicap stalls, but it was before I got pregnant, before Bobby was born. When I got pregnant, of course, it made sense, because I was large and, toward the end, felt looming. And with Bobby it made sense, because being with a small child was a kind of handicap. People held doors for you (or they were supposed to); they gave you their seats. They lifted things you couldn’t lift. And with Bobby in bathrooms where there were no changing tables, I had to change him with his head dangling in the sink and in front of makeup mirrors, where women stared at his often erect penis and testicles—for I must say that he was born well-endowed, as if his manhood were somehow already formed. I had changed him on the floors of museums and restaurant bathrooms, wondering what diseases he would pick up. Little girls peered down; other mothers grinned knowingly. Yes, their nods told me, I know what this is. I’ve been there.

  It was the space I liked in the handicap stalls, space I missed elsewhere. The way you could stretch out, not get your purse and bags and coat all bunched up in a tiny cubicle. Often I was loaded down with art supplies, cameras, purchases I’d made (I was always making purchases, little things—socks, mittens from street merchants, those men with foreign accents who shouted “Gloves, four dollars” on the street). Sometimes I would splurge and buy food I could not really afford—pumpkin tortellini at Fairway, a certain walnut bread in SoHo.

  Perhaps it all began when I was trying to please Matthew, bringing him what I thought he’d like. A comforter if the weather suddenly turned. A pastry he loved. Or, when I could afford it, which wasn’t often, a free-range chicken from the Jefferson Market. Why I felt I needed to please him at all was a mystery to me; I didn’t really think about this until after he was gone. Matthew seemed to like everything. In fact, he liked everything equally. He liked flowers or no flowers, walnut bread or Wonderbread. He liked to be warm, but he never minded being cold. He liked a new sweater or no sweater at all.

  People always said—people who worked with him, like his assistant Walter, or friends like Patricia and Scott, or Jake—that Matthew was easy to get along with. No one doubted that. He was an easy person to be with. Our friends also said to me sometimes when we were having trouble, and especially toward the end, that Matthew was a difficult man to know. He was easy, but he was unknowable. And now I was trying to decide whether this was true. It wasn’t only that I was trying to please him that made me weigh myself down with so many packages and use the handicap stalls. I wanted to see him react. What if I came home with black hair, my red locks cut off, would he say something? Would he notice?

  It had all burdened me. Loaded me down with boxes, packages, small items. So I’d stop by museums and use the handicap stalls. I’d wait patiently while old women in diapers made their way into the special stalls. I listened as arthritic limbs settled down. Listened to the groans of the elderly trying to pee or defecate as sagging sphincters, weakened limbs, swollen joints refused. Or I’d watch children in wheelchairs, damaged at birth, children who struck terror into me when I was pregnant, children who had not gotten the oxygen they needed, whose spines had been twisted in the birth canal, whose hips had been snapped from the sockets. Children whose brains and limbs had been addled before they knew what it was to have them.
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br />   Once I’d wondered who the group was that had lobbied for the ramps and special entranceways. Access was their word. The alternatives to revolving doors. The buses that dropped low to the pavement. The bathroom stalls I’d used first out of a sense of spaciousness, then out of necessity. When was it that I began to need the ramps, the special entranceways—that I had joined the ranks of the invalids?

  Patricia’s apartment was filled with good antiques—both English and American. She had chests of cherrywood and pine and a maple hutch that held the china she had registered at the best shops when she became engaged to Scott, years before I met them. She was the only person I knew who had real silver. In her kitchen hung shiny copper pots without a trace of tarnish. Everything about her house was ordered, regulated, neat. And shimmering. How impeccably she ran her life, as if this sense of order was her greatest source of pride.

  Patricia stood at the sink, chopping broccoli and carrots, while Scott sat in the living room in front of the TV, headphones on, remote in hand, flipping channels. She gave me a hug, poured me seltzer with lime, and told me to make myself at home. “You’ll sleep in the living room. You and Bobby can sleep together, right?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Listen, I really appreciate this. I mean, I’m grateful for your letting me stay here.”

  “Oh, it’s no problem. Just make yourself comfortable. How are you? How was your day?”

  I began to describe it to her. The early morning struggles to leave the apartment, the exhaustion of just getting to the Met. “But then it all changed. I don’t know. Wandering through the museum, being out for the day. I felt very …” I didn’t know what I wanted to say, but I noticed that Patricia didn’t seem to be listening. She was chopping vegetables, preparing dinner. “Well, it made me feel better. As if I could start to do things again. Do you understand?”