A Mother's Love

by Mary Morris

  I closed the magazine just as the train started up. At the next station the doors opened and an old woman with long white facial hairs appeared. She stared at me with bewildered eyes and spoke through jagged teeth, eyes bulging; her face would haunt me for a long time. “Is this train going to Coney Island?” she asked. “No, dear,” I said, not taking my eyes off her, for fear of what I did not know. “You’re going the wrong way.” And I pointed as far away from me and Bobby as I could.

  ——

  I got off the train at Seventy-ninth Street and headed for the Museum of Natural History, where I pushed Bobby past the big boat, an exhibition on explorers, and a series of old exhibits. Life in the Soil, Life on the Farm, Life in the Sea, Life in the Air, Life in the Forest. In Life in the Soil, worms, termites, moles burrowed into the ground. They stared, lifeless and glazed, from their dirt-bound abodes. I headed for the blue whale and sipped a Coke amidst the walruses, the polar bears, animals of the north. Bobby waved an arm at the sharks. The room was dark blue and cold. Children ran everywhere inside this self-contained space. I thought of taking him up to the dinosaurs, but I suddenly felt stifled by all the dead things.

  It was midafternoon and I decided to go to a movie. Bobby was asleep, and if he woke, I’d nurse him in the theater. At Loews Eighty-fourth, I had the usual choice of poor films, the kind that Hollywood thinks the American public wants to see. I picked what I thought would be the least offensive and at the same time not be entirely innocuous. It would, of course, have the requisite detective, car chase, and ill-fated romance, but it also promised to deal with one social issue (race relations) and was billed, as if this weren’t a contradiction in terms, as a comic thriller.

  I bought my ticket and went inside. The ticket taker scrutinized me. “Lady, please fold up your carriage, sit in the back, and if the baby wakes up, you must leave the theater.” Once inside, I braced myself for the escalator, then found a seat near the rear, where I sat down, feeling like a derelict, my heart beating. What would I do if my baby woke up? How quickly could I move him to my breast?

  Though there were only a few people in the theater—one or two who looked as if they too had no place to go—I found I could not relax. Several fathers with small children who, I assumed, were having their regular Saturday visitation at the movies. How much of a disturbance could I cause? The movie—a psychiatrist’s wife is murdered and her husband suspects his lover, who is also a patient, all of which was supposed to be a spoof—brought me only a fleeting pleasure and it was not long before I left that film and snuck into another while the ticket taker was at the popcorn stand. This film appeared to have more drama, but I had missed some key element of the plot—a conversation overheard—which had been covered in the first two minutes. I sat there, intrigued but bewildered, trying to piece together what had happened.

  Then Bobby woke and let out a terrible shriek. A hundred heads—this was clearly the more popular movie—turned and stared at me. Half the audience shouted, “Shush!” Though I tried to get him to my breast, he continued to wail. “Take that baby out of here,” someone yelled. Embarrassed, I made my way toward the ladies’ room. Another movie had just gotten out, and the line to the ladies’ room was long. I would, of course, need the handicap stall, but who knew, with this kind of a line, how long it would take me to forge ahead? Bobby, now soaked, was throwing a tantrum. I went to the front of the line.

  No one stopped me; no one stood in my way. I changed him and then returned to the first film. I hadn’t missed much. Most of the audience was asleep. One man was talking to himself. I put Bobby to my breast and sat back, feeling the soporific effect of his nursing, and watching the movie the way I watch movies on airplanes, without renting the headset, just looking at images for the pleasure of seeing them flicker past me on the screen.

  Sitting in the back of the darkened theater I thought how, if my mother were still in my life, I could have dropped off Bobby at her place, seen a movie, had dinner with friends. I wondered what it would be like to have her—telling stories of her past—in my life right now. She would have plastic bags filled with pills. A hacking cough, special diets, creams to keep the wrinkles away. Vitamins to keep her going. She’d come over to watch the baby, hold him up, and say, “I don’t think he’s getting enough,” a subtle disapproval of my nursing. She’d smoke cigarettes and bend over crossword puzzles on her knees, doing them in ink. Maybe she’d regale my dates with stories of her past loves, the ones before my father. The man she sailed off to Catalina with, dolphins leaping around the boat. Her face, once beautiful, now like a prune. Hands crooked. False teeth, hair turned a frizzy gray, body gone to pot. The wizened potentate, her power (the power my remembering has given to her) depleted. It occurs to me as I tell this that my mother, if she is alive, is only in her fifties. Yet I see her as someone very old.

  It was dark when the movie let out, and I walked uptown along Broadway, unsure of where I was going. Perhaps, I thought, I was just heading home, returning to a pesticide-poisoned building with a small child. Committing infanticide, suicide. Killing us both. On my way north I was accosted by a man who pulled out a knife. He stood in front of me and told me to give him some money. I stared at him dumbly, for I had never been mugged before. Slowly I reached for my purse, but the man suddenly looked at the baby stroller, then at his knife. He seemed disoriented, as if he were drunk or on drugs. To my surprise, he put the knife away and disappeared down a side street.

  Shaken, I continued up Broadway until I came to my block. I pushed the stroller to the front of my building which was dark. Everyone was out. Turning, I looked across the street. A light was on in the apartment of the woman across the way. For a moment I couldn’t remember her name. Then it came to me: Mara. She was home. I slipped the stroller down the curb and crossed to the other side.

  I pressed the buzzer for a long time before Mara shouted back, “Who is it? Who’s there?” I must have leaned too close to the intercom, because I kept shouting, “It’s me; it’s Ivy.” “Who is it?” Mara screamed. “Who’s there?”

  I pulled my face back. “It’s me,” I said. “Your neighbor from across the street.” She buzzed me in.

  Dressed in jeans and an old T-shirt, Mara stared at me as she opened the door. She looked confused. “You said to come over for a drink sometime, so I did. I should have phoned,” I told her, “but I didn’t have your number.”

  “Come in,” she said, holding the door while I pushed the stroller through. Her apartment was a mess. Toys and paint were everywhere. A box of congealed pizza was on a table. The TV blared with some kids’ show. Dishes filled the sink. Clothes lay in clumps, waiting to be washed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “If it’s a bad time, I’ll leave. I could call you sometime …”

  Mara began picking up the box of pizza, the dirty clothes. She tossed toys into a basket. Her little boy watched her, then me.

  “No,” she said. “It’s fine. It isn’t a bad time.”

  Suddenly I found myself crumbling; tears came to my eyes. “I didn’t know where to go. I can’t go home. It’s been fumigated. I can’t go back to my friend’s. Her husband doesn’t want children around. They can’t have any of their own.” She motioned for me to sit down. “You don’t even know me. You must think I’m a lunatic. I’m sorry. I’ll go.” I headed for the door.

  She put her hands on her hips, assessing the situation. “No, please stay.” She coaxed me to sit down on the sofa. “Now just rest a minute. Alana!” Mara shouted. “Come here, pick up your things. Take Jason and the baby into the other room.” Stoically Alana picked up a few things, then took Jason and Bobby into another room.

  After they left, I explained everything to Mara more calmly. About having to leave the apartment because of the exterminator and feeling I had no place to go. About not feeling welcome at Patricia’s. Wandering the streets of Manhattan. The museum. The movie house. The mugging attempt. That I didn’t know where to go.

  “And that man you l
ive with?” she asked hesitantly. “I haven’t seen you with him in a while.”

  “We aren’t together anymore.”

  “Oh,” she said, “I see.” She listened intently to every word I said, staring at me the whole time. When I finished, she put her finger to her chin. She shook her head and sighed. “Would you like some chocolate?” she asked after a long pause.

  “Chocolate?”

  “Candy,” she said.

  I thought about this. Chocolate did seem the right thing at the moment. Before I knew what was happening, she had gone to the refrigerator and returned with a box of candy. “My parents sent it to me for Christmas. What am I going to do with a box of chocolates? They always send me the most ridiculous things. I barely eat as it is. So it’s been all these months in the refrigerator.”

  Mara sat on the floor, the box of chocolates open in her lap. “Here, let’s eat them.”

  I slid down off the sofa, and we sat on the floor, stuffing ourselves with caramel creams, marzipan, white chocolate, maple creams, chocolates stuffed with cherries, orange, nougats, coconut, lemon. I sucked on candy that tasted of caramel and chestnut. We were almost through with the box when the children came in—Alana holding Bobby, Jason toddling behind. Alana and Jason reached into the box and scooped up what was left. I put some soft chocolate filling on Bobby’s tongue, and he smiled.

  “Well,” Mara said, “let’s see about dinner.”

  Now we laughed. She ordered a movie. A Western that we could all watch while we ate Chinese food. Though I didn’t think I could eat a bite, I found myself ravenous, and we all sat on Mara’s bed, eating noodles, watching a grade B Western.

  “All right, now, you kids, it’s time for bed. Alana, wash up. Brush Jason’s teeth. We’ll bathe you all in the morning. Ivy, you sleep in my bed; I can sleep on the couch. It’s no problem for me.”

  “Mara, please,” I said, “the couch is fine. I don’t need your bed.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, take the bed. Get a good night’s sleep. You can probably use it.”

  I nursed Bobby, then put him into the portable crib that Mara set up in the bedroom. In an instant I fell sound asleep. At times I heard the baby cry, but I didn’t move. I woke to the sound of boiling water. A light was on in the kitchen. From where I lay, I could see a plume of steam rising from the stove. A pasta pot gurgled as Mara poked at bottles tossing on the surface like rafts in a storm. Bobby was draped over her shoulder. The crib had disappeared from my room.

  I tried to get up but found I couldn’t move. Instead I stared into the kitchen, into the chiaroscuro, the shadows on the wall. I could paint this portrait, I told myself. Vermeer in a contemporary setting. The smell of fresh linen and warm milk came my way, and I felt like those men in old dramas, infected with jungle fever, who wake to find themselves rescued by a tribe of friendly natives or the local misguided missionaries as they drift between delirium and sleep.

  It was late when I got up, almost ten o’clock. The children, even Bobby, were in front of the television, watching cartoons. I went into the living room and found Mara on the floor, eating a bowl of cereal. A large box was on the table. “Here,” she said, “this is for you. Open it.” Hesitantly I pulled the lid off the box. Inside were clothes—shoes, socks, pants, shirts, T-shirts with alligators on them, little corduroy suits. All labeled 1 TO 2 YEARS. “My mother buys these for him. But Jason’s past two now. I thought maybe you could use them.”

  “Oh, Mara, are you sure? Really, I’ll take good care of them.”

  “Oh, you can have them,” she said, putting the lid back on. “I won’t be needing them anymore.”

  TWENTY

  THREE DAYS LATER Mara sat in my kitchen, a pot of almond herbal tea between us. In her hands was a pair of scissors, and assorted newspaper ads and D’Agostino’s monthly bulletin. She clipped coupons as we talked—for Pampers, Ivory Soap, Kellogg’s cereal. On the floor of the living room the children played. “Alana,” Mara said, “take the marble out of the baby’s mouth.” I gasped as a green marble was extracted from Bobby’s toothless gums. “Now pick up all the marbles and bring them to me. Now.”

  She shook her head, reached into her bag, and pulled out a ball—clear plastic with colored objects inside—crayons, paper, books. She tossed them in the direction of Alana. Jason lunged for the ball, and Bobby waved his hands. Mara threw her head back and laughed, and I thought how pretty she was when she was happy. It was the way I’d first seen her across the street when I envied her all that she had. “Jason, don’t take that from Bobby.” Bobby began to cry as Jason took away the ball, which Alana had given the baby. “Give it back this minute.”

  She ran her fingers through her long brown hair. “You see, I’m in a very precarious position. If Dave doesn’t pay me support, we have no way of living. It’s odd, because we have this nice apartment and I make some money as a free-lance writer and I grew up in a nice neighborhood in the suburbs. But I married Dave out of college and I’ve never really worked. Basically, I’m one support payment away from welfare.”

  “Wouldn’t your parents help you out?”

  Mara shrugged and the familiar look of sadness came over her face. “It’s a long story. I don’t want to be beholden, if you know what I mean.”

  I nodded. “I guess I know.”

  “What about you? Do you have family around? Anyone you can turn to?”

  “Well, my parents live in Tucson. I work part-time for a jewelry store owner, but he’s not someone I can turn to. Still, he helps me out by giving me work.”

  “No siblings?”

  I never knew what to do when someone asked me this. I didn’t want to lie. Nor did I want to tell the truth. “No,” I said. “I’m an only child.”

  Mara shook her head. “I had a sister,” she said. “She died. Alana is named after her.” She spoke matter-of-factly, but there was something in her voice that told me not to ask any questions about her family, and she wouldn’t ask about mine.

  “So,” Mara said, trying to sound cheerful, “you probably need a baby sitter when you go to work.” I had told her that Bobby’s father was not helping me out. “Here,”—she scribbled on a piece of paper —“this is a woman I know. She used to baby-sit for a friend of mine. She isn’t cheap, but I hear she’s very good.”

  I took the paper and tucked it under a plant that sat on the table. When Mara got up to leave a few moments later, I said, “May I ask you a favor? If it isn’t too much …”

  “Ask,” she said.

  “I need a few things at the store. Would you mind …”

  She sat back down. “Take your time,” she said. “I’m not in a rush.” She picked up her scissors and returned to cutting out coupons. She laid them in front of her in a neat pile, then flipped through them as if they were a deck of cards.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I AM DREAMING. I know I am dreaming because my mother is in the house. She is cleaning, dusting, baking bread. There are flowers in vases. My mother hums as she goes about her work. She reminds me of Snow White in the house of the dwarfs. These things, of course, never happened. But now I see my mother doing things other mothers do. Leaving cookies on a plate. Sewing name tags in my socks when I go off to camp.

  My father comes home from work. He has a job selling furniture or he’s a professional man, like a chiropractor. He plops down in front of the news and I climb into his lap. My mother hands him a drink, ruffles his hair. Then Sam and I fight over a doll, a sweater, and I hear my mother’s voice: “Now, girls, cut that out. Help me get dinner.”

  In the middle of the dream I am talking to myself. I say this is not my life. This is my life if my mother had stayed. If she’d been a different mother altogether. We go to a store to buy a dress. We are trying on clothes. She slips easily into a size 8 while I struggle with a 10. We laugh at each other. My mother is slender and dark. Like a flamenco dancer. The saleswoman asks if we are sisters or just friends. We burst out laughing in the dressing room, doubled over.<
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  Then I see myself married, only it is not to Matthew. If my life had been a different life, then the man I would have chosen would not be Matthew. I am pushing a stroller down a wintry residential street in Brooklyn. I have a husband with a briefcase in his hand. We board a plane and fly to Florida. The flight attendant gives a set of wings to Bobby. When we arrive, my parents greet us at the gate. They are healthy, tan. My father, wrinkled but robust, hugs me. My mother is gray, but she reaches out to take Bobby in her arms. She holds him above as if he were a kite she could fly.

  In Florida Bobby rides a yellow tricycle. My husband—I call him X in my dream—wears jogging shorts, an orange sweatband. I see him only from the back as he pushes Bobby along. I pick small white flowers. Bobby will grow up to be a lawyer like his father. My parents will die and leave the Florida condo to me and Sam. We will sell it and buy a vacation home together in Maine.

  I know I am dreaming, but it is all so clear.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I BORROWED MONEY from my father—something I’d resisted so far. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said. Then I spent days interviewing half the Caribbean—women from Puerto Rico, Belize, Trinidad, and other parts of the third world. Women who were paying other women, perhaps women darker than themselves, to watch their children while they watched mine. There was the nice lady named Luz from Guatemala who had a brain-damaged child back in her country, and she had to send money home; otherwise they would put him in an institution. And there was the woman from Brazil whose child had called 911 because he was cold. (It had taken her two months to get him back from Family Services.) And Marisella, whose brother, a cook, had been laid off. Now he watched her twin girls while she looked for work.