by Tracy Ross
Early September, 1985. Five weeks after I bolted out of the living room, Claudia and I pulled into my parents’ driveway. Dusk was spreading across the desert, laying a blanket of purple over the scratchy, yellow earth. The grass on our front lawn looked like somebody had doused it in gasoline and then lit the whole thing on fire. I hoped Dusty and Brandy were in the backyard waiting for me, but if they weren’t, I also hoped wherever they were, the grass was greener than at our place.
Imaginary piranhas gutted my intestines. I kept my seat belt buckled, even when Claudia turned off the car. Neither of us was in any rush to get moving. We sat in the driveway while the light deepened from periwinkle to purple. Claudia said my mom would probably act nervous for the first few weeks I was home, that most families struggle to resume normalcy after a family member has been accused of abuse. At any rate, she said, I shouldn’t expect miracles my first week back.
I heard her, but I wasn’t really listening. I was watching the windows of my house. At one point a curtain shifted, and I saw the outline of my mom’s face peering into the night. I figured she didn’t see us, because she didn’t wave or come to the door or turn on the porch light. Reluctant to make the first move, I stayed glued to the car seat until Claudia told me to get moving.
“Only if you come with me,” I said.
“Of course I will. But you have to lead, and I’ll follow.”
Silently cursing her, I opened the car door, grabbed my duffel, and slowly began walking up the concrete.
And for those first few steps I felt a small rush of happiness. After five weeks in foster care, I was finally going home. I took refuge in the clean, cool air of evening and the thought of my dogs, restless from a summer of sitting around and desperate for a game of fetch. I even smiled at the Roadrunner trailer sitting on the pavement with the snot-colored swoosh my dad never bothered to repaint yellow. But the closer I got to the front door, the more I questioned the Health and Welfare Department’s decision.
I wanted my mom to be waiting for me, putting the final touches on my homecoming celebration. There’d be cans of Tab, a new bedspread, a card that looked like a giant doily. The card would say something about how much she loved me, how sorry she was for the suffering she had caused. But I knew from years of experience how her actions could detour from her words.
The front door opened just as Claudia and I mounted the first step of my family’s AstroTurf-covered porch steps. Mom stood before us in a pair of tattered blue sweatpants and matching hoodless sweatshirt. She was thinner than I’d expected, and deep dark bags hung beneath her forest-green eyes.
We surveyed each other, halting. Then she took a small, shaky step toward me. She was smiling, and at first I thought she was laughing. But the laugh I thought I heard was really the sound of her crying.
“Oh, Tracy,” she choked, pulling me to her collarbone. “I’m so glad you came back to me. You have no idea what those people did to us. I told myself I wouldn’t cry when I saw you. But I needed you, and now you’re home.”
10
Girl, Interrogated
Mom kept hugging, squeezing me tighter than a Vise-Grip. I haloed my arms around her, patting her on the back. I’d sworn off hugs from adults when Dad started using them as an excuse to suction me into his body. But Mom was so weepy and emaciated, I let her hang on as long as she wanted.
When we were finished, Claudia said good-bye. She told us to take care of ourselves, watch out for each other, and that she’d be back to check on us in a week. She had to check in even if she didn’t want to, because although the court had returned me to my mom, I’d stay in the custody of the state for another ten months. It was Claudia’s job, for the duration, to make sure Mom and I got along. She wished us good luck, gave me a reassuring arm squeeze, and turned around.
Mom went inside before Claudia reached the bottom step. I kept watching as my temporary guardian’s curly, salt-and-pepper head, atop her tiny, round body, ducked into the Impala, where she sat for several minutes, then threw the car into reverse.
I stared after her until even the tracers off her headlights disappeared around the corner, then took a deep breath and picked up my bag. Mom had left it, along with my running shoes and a milk crate of textbooks, sitting a few inches from my feet. At first I thought it was weird that she didn’t wait to go inside with me, but I quickly dismissed her actions. Slinging my bag across both shoulders, I picked up my belongings and stepped into the house.
I was curious to see if anything about our house had changed in my absence. Mom prided herself on her near-constant interior decorating, so I stepped into the living room and looked to see which vase had been replaced or which picture moved to a different hallway.
To my disappointment, everything looked exactly the same. The bright orange sectional where I’d recovered from various bone breaks sat in front of the glass coffee table, which sat in front of the wood burning fireplace. Chris’s Steinway piano hugged the entryway wall. Dad’s leather recliner hovered a few feet from the front window. And Mom’s comfy chair, where I’d spent so many nights lying across her lap and forcing her to tickle my back, still slumped in front of the TV.
And yet, it wasn’t really rearranged furniture I was looking for. What I wanted was some sign that I’d been missed. I’d had weeks to construct the ultimate fantasy homecoming and now I wanted results. Kicking off my Birkenstocks, I put down my duffel, and walked into the kitchen, where I expected to see a welcome home sign, balloons, and a mason jar full of flowers.
Instead, I saw my mom, sitting on a beige swivel barstool at the far end of the counter. Her nose was red and swollen from crying. She kneaded a soggy Kleenex, which she stretched in my direction.
“Come over here, stranger,” she said, patting the barstool next to her.
I smiled, but didn’t walk over.
“Sit down,” she prodded again. “I want to look at my beautiful daughter.”
“I’m not beautiful, Mom. And I’m good. I feel like standing.”
“But you must have been standing all day.”
“No … Actually, I was sitting. Waiting. You know, for Claudia to pick me up.”
“Well, come over here anyway and give your mom a hug.”
Slowly, dragging my bare feet across the carpet, I went to her barstool. She stood up and wrapped her arms around me. She smelled like Clinique face wash and Redken shampoo. I noticed her breasts, and how they hung heavy against her chest. My mom’s bosom was warm, but the feel of it against my own chest made me want to worm away from her as quickly as possible.
“What’s wrong?” she said. “You don’t want to hug your mother?” Then stepping back and sighing, she added, “I know how strange this must be for you, Tracy. But this is where you live. Dad’s gone, so you can feel safe here. It’s just you and me for a while.”
Standing before her, I tried to come up with the appropriate response. Something that would make her feel good but also show her that I hadn’t come back to play games with her. I knew I was the one who would have to prove that our lives had returned to normal, just as I knew that I couldn’t because they never would.
But Mom was too quick on the draw. She continued talking before I could answer. “You feel good being back here, right? I mean, if you don’t, we can call Claudia and tell her to come get you. You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to, Tracy. I know what you must think of me, but I’m still your mother.”
“No, Mom. That’s not it. I just got here. Give me a second and I’ll feel better.”
“Okay, then,” she said, turning back to the counter. This time she chose a different barstool, in the middle. “Take your time. I’m perfectly happy to sit here and wait forever.”
Mom and I sat at the kitchen counter, reacqauinting ourselves with each other. When we ran out of things to talk about, we turned on 60 Minutes. After a while, though, my stomach started growling. Still believing my mom had planned a special homecoming, I hadn’t eaten for hours.
“So, Mom,” I said. “What’s for dinner?”
“Oh, gosh, is it that time already?”
“I think so; at least that’s what my stomach is telling me. Make anything special? You know, for my first night back?”
Her face fell. She seemed to know instantly that she’d forgotten to do something important. It wasn’t like her, either. She’d always made sure I had birthday parties, Christmas trees adorned with presents, and obscenely full Easter baskets. But now she searched for an answer to why she hadn’t recognized me with anything special.
“I didn’t make anything,” she said. “Because I didn’t know what to make you. It’s been so long since you’ve been home, and Dad and I barely ate all summer. We were too sad to eat. We stopped cooking.”
“But it should have been easy, Mom,” I said. “You know how much I like lasanga.”
“I know, honey,” she said. “But you know how your tastes change. What if you’d found some diet in Seventeen that I didn’t know about.” Then her face brightened. “You know what though,” she said, “check the cupboards. I got you all kinds of goodies.”
I got up and rifled through the cereal cupboard, finding boxes of Trix, Cap’n Crunch, and Golden Grahams. Mom had definitely been to Albertsons. In the Lazy Susan I found potato chips, Oreos, and Triscuits, and when I looked in the fridge, I saw milk, eggs, cottage cheese, and mini yogurts. I pulled my head from the frosty compartment and managed a weak smile at my mother. At least I’d get to eat junk food.
“Check the freezer too,” said my mom. “The Schwan’s man stocked us up on fried shrimp, frozen hamburgers, and bean burritos. You know I hate that stuff, but Dad likes it. Pick something, and I’ll pop it in the microwave.”
I peered back into the freezer at the bright blue boxes of fish sticks and egg-and-cheese biscuits. The remnants of Dad’s last gallon of ice cream sat on the bottom shelf. When I was sure there were no homemade lasagnas hiding behind it, I said. “Bean burrito, I guess.”
“Perfect,” said Mom. “Then that’s what I’m having.”
For a few weeks that autumn, Mom and I lived together like roommates. It was great. She’d go to work at Community Action, and I’d go to school, cheerleading, and cross-country practice. If I didn’t have extracurriculars, Reed would come over for a visit. We’d fall on my bed and make out; then he’d tell me that he wanted to build a pipe bomb and put it in the gas tank of my dad’s Jeep. I loved this show of strength and solidarity, but it also scared me, because Reed seemed crazy enough to kill my father. We’d kiss and grope until we heard my mom’s car pulling into the driveway; then he’d glide out the sliding glass door and hop in his truck, which he’d hidden around the corner.
But then one day the beautiful lawlessness at my mom’s house ended. It was a Saturday, and we were sitting at the kitchen counter, eating breakfast.
“Can I ask you a question?” Mom said.
“Sure, Mom,” I answered. “Shoot.”
She paused, lowering a Red Rose tea bag into a cup of boiling water. She dunked it up and down, pinching the white paper pull-tab. When she was sure enough tannins had seeped into the water, she removed the bag, squeezed it, and set it on the counter.
“But I’m not going to ask it if it’s going to make you angry,” she said.
Now it was my turn to pause. I stalled because I heard something dangerous in Mom’s voice. For weeks she’d been summoning me to the table and asking me questions about the abuse. “Yes, Mom,” I’d answer. “I still believe everything I said in family court,” or “No, Mom. I don’t think I’ll hate Dad forever.” But either I was a masochist or too stupid to know better, because every time she summoned me, I went back for another round of interrogation.
But this time sounded different. Mom had never predicted my anger before. I used my spoon to push my apples-and-cinnamon goop into a circle, constructing a static oatmeal whirlpool. Into the center I poured a splash of milk. When I was finished pouring, I dipped my spoon into the eye of the maelstrom: voilà, apples-and-cinnamon-flavored milk.
“Well,” I said, licking the sugary slurry off my lips, “if you think it’s going to make me angry, don’t ask it.”
“But I have to,” said Mom. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Father Lafey and I talked about it. I met with him at the priory.”
Mom put her faith in Father Lafey, the Jesuit priest at the Jerome Catholic Church. I liked the priest because he had acoustic guitar at mass. I figured he’d be fair to the whole family when it came to our situation, especially as a man of the cloak. But I’d also seen Mom trap people in conversations; I knew how she’d pretend she didn’t know what she was saying, so she could say anything she wanted.
“Okay, then,” I said, digging my spoon into my oatmeal. “Whatever you want, Mom. Go for it.”
The words blasted from her mouth like machine-gun fire:
“What if it was the devil?”
“What?”
“I said … What if it was the devil and not Dad who hurt you?”
“Mom! How can you think that? How can you even say that?”
“Say what? You’re taking it too literally. I’m talking about how the devil can get inside people. Make them do things they don’t want to do. I’m not saying Dad became the devil. But the devil can make people do things they don’t want to. Father Lafey and I talked about this. He agrees: whatever’s ailing Dad can be healed with your forgiveness.”
I chose my words carefully.
“Well, if you put it that way,” I answered, “I guess it could have been the devil.”
Mom questioned me again, a few weeks later.
This time her friend Nan was with us. We were sitting at the kitchen counter, eating boiled eggs and English muffins.
Mom and Nan complimented me on my new haircut, the short/long Eurythmics style I’d given myself over the summer. They ooohed and aaahed over my new clothes style, a preppie/punk rock fusion that consisted mainly of super-short mini skirts and Hanes men’s size large T-shirts. My new favorite band was the Sex Pistols, so I’d permanent-markered NeVeR MinD tHe BoLLocKS HeREs THe sEx PiStOLs across the front of several shirts.
But after a while, the conversation shifted to an episode Mom had seen on the Phil Donahue Show. She’d been at home, nursing a migraine, when she turned the channel to a row of women sobbing on a stage. Instantly captivated, she watched until the last commercial.
“It was horrible,” said my mom, glaring into her teacup. “These women were raped by their husbands. They had to sit there and take it. Some of them were hurt so badly they had to be hospitalized. And nobody helped them. They had to take themselves to the doctor.”
I sat on my barstool, listening to the conversation. I liked it when Mom talked about important things. We never discussed concepts like social justice or women’s rights when my dad was around. This sounded like a new beginning.
I was just about to tell Mom and Nan about Laura Etter, and how brave I thought she was for being the only female brakeman on the Twin Falls branch of the Union Pacific Railroad, when Mom changed the subject again. Or maybe she didn’t change it, but shifted it ever so slightly. It’s obvious she didn’t think about what she was going to say because the next thing out of her mouth hit me like a sledgehammer to the tonsils.
“You know, though,” she said, “sometimes I wonder if incest has been blown out of proportion in this country. I mean, Americans can be so Puritan. In Newfoundland we put up with old men grabbing us all the time. But we never did anything about it.”
I’m trying to remember what came first: the constriction behind my ears that felt like someone was pinning them together or the hot tears that jumped to my eyes, blurring my vision. Mom’s comment had come out of nowhere. I caught the tears before she and Nan could see them, but I couldn’t stop the words that tumbled from my mouth like a rockslide down a muddy, rain-soaked mountain.
“Mom! Do you have any idea what you’re saying?” I shouted.
“What? What’s the matter?” stammered my mom.
“Do you really think Americans are too sensitive about abuse? I’m sitting right here, Mom. Does that mean anything to you?”
I stood up, accidentally slamming the barstool against the refrigerator. Mom and Nan looked at me in horror. But instead of apologizing like I’d normally do, I turned around and took off down the hallway.
“Tracy, stop!” Mom yelled from behind me. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just saying …”
But I didn’t want to hear what my mom was saying. I’d spent fourteen years listening to what she said. She’d told me—about the poverty in Newfoundland, the neglect in her childhood, and her uncles, all raging alcoholics, who did things like shove their wives’ heads in oven broilers while their children stood watching—so often I’d never forget it. What she’d always failed to realize was that a person with her own thoughts and feelings sat at the other end of her conversation. I wanted to scream that it mattered how and when she said things, and more important, who she said them in front of.
I got to my bedroom just as Mom was rounding the staircase, and jammed a Soft Cell cassette into my tape recorder. Mom banged on the door of my bedroom, yelling that she was sorry. She carried on so long that eventually I started thinking of Nan out there listening. I liked Nan, so I turned down the music on my stereo.
Mom was leaning into the door, pushing her sentences through it. “Tracy. I’m so sorry,” she said. “I did it again, didn’t I? Said something stupid and made you angry. I know. I’m an idiot. A poop. But I promise I didn’t mean anything by it. Whatever you heard, Tracy, you took it the wrong way.”
