And that’s how we broke up. Over a delusion. Maybe I had a delusion too. I had saved Ellen, and I guess I thought she could do the same for me. I had created her: She was—she is my handiwork. Everything she is today is because of me—even her delusion about becoming a potter.
I took it hard. The nightmares came back. I wandered around at night and tried to avoid my mother. But she heard. I pretended I was worried about finals, but one night she got it out of me.
I was sitting in the kitchen, eating bananas. But they weren’t helping me feel any better.
“What is it, Jeff? What’s wrong? This is the fourth night in a row that you’ve been up,” said my mother.
“It’s nothing, Mom. I’ll be all right. I’m sorry I keep waking you up.”
“That’s okay, Jeff. You know I never sleep much. But what’s wrong? Is something wrong?”
I looked at her tight, little face and I felt exhausted. I was tired of her and tired of her problems. When I had Ellen, I could forget. But now it was there again, and it seemed to me that all my life I’d been worrying about my mother and her problems. I could see ahead to all the years stretching out in front of me, filled with wakefulness, and frightening dreams, and late nights in the kitchen with her and her problems.
“Jeff, you’re crying,” said my mother. “My poor boy, what is it?”
She put her skinny arms around me and pressed my head against her bony chest. She was rocking me and it made me angry. I pulled away from her and said, “Ellen’s left me.”
“Ellen?” My mother blinked. “Ellen left you!”
“Ellen left me,” I repeated.
“Why, that’s crazy,” said my mother.
“Why is it crazy?”
“Well, I know you liked her, Jeff, but really, even aside from her weight, I never could understand how you ever could have given up Norma for a girl like Ellen.”
“You didn’t like Norma when I was going around with her,” I snapped. “You always had nasty little things to say about Norma.”
“Well, I might have objected to the way she dressed—she certainly was sloppy—but at least she was a nice girl, a pretty girl, and kind of interesting too, I thought. But Ellen . . .”
“That’s right,” I said. “Ellen can’t hold a candle to Norma. She doesn’t have a brain in her head, and when I met her nobody could stand her. I was her only friend. If it weren’t for me, she’d still be a fat, ugly hulk without a friend in the world.” I ranted on and on for a while, and my mother said, “You did a lot for that girl.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I said. “I taught her how to dress, how to walk, even how to think. I was the one who even got her started in ceramics. And if she’d listen to me, she’d realize that she can’t do it. I only want what’s best for her, but she won’t listen.”
“They never do,” said my mother, shaking her head. “You give up your whole life for them, and they don’t appreciate it. They don’t thank you for what you’ve done. They spit in your face and then they go away and . . .”
She didn’t finish the sentence, but I could have finished it for her. They go away and live their lives without you. Like Wanda, like my father, and now like Ellen.
My mother took my hand and pressed it. “My poor boy,” she said gently, “you’re better off without her. A boy like you won’t have any trouble finding somebody else. You’ll feel better after a while. You’ll get over it.”
My poor mother and I were linked in our misery. And in too many other ways. It chilled me as we sat there that night consoling each other. But it helped me too. I wasn’t going to end up like her if I could help it. I wasn’t going to spend my life brooding over how other people had disappointed me. In the fall, I would be leaving too.
I saw Ellen in school today. We’ll be graduating in a few days, and after that, maybe I won’t see her again for a long time. She was carrying a pot in her hand, looking at it with joy, the same way Norma had been looking at the pot in her hands the first time I saw her. I don’t remember Norma’s pot, but it couldn’t have looked anything like Ellen’s. It couldn’t have been squat and lumpy and glazed in a shiny vomit pink. Ellen’s face was rosy. She was wearing jeans and an old T-shirt, and she looked like any other pretty, chubby girl.
“Hi, Ellen,” I said as she passed.
She looked up. There was still a smile on her lips from her pleasure over the ugly little pot. But when she saw me, her face hardened. She nodded, averted her eyes, and hurried away.
I saw my advisor there too. He shook my hand and congratulated me on getting into U.C. San Diego.
“Well, we got you through, Jeff, didn’t we?” he said heartily.
His eyes were already moving around me to the dozen or so people in his office, waiting to see him.
“I just wanted to thank you,” I told him, “and also to say I wish I had taken your advice about one thing.”
“What was that, Jeff?” he asked.
“I should have taken Mr. Wasserman for chemistry.”
About the Author
Marilyn Sachs is the author of more than forty books, including A Pocket Full of Seeds, Lost in America, and First Impressions, and was a National Book Award finalist for The Bear’s House. She lives in San Francisco..
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