by Wiess, Laura
She was still wary, though, sometimes and would go quiet and withdraw, like she couldn’t afford to completely believe. I knew how she felt because I would catch myself being almost too happy, and would hurriedly try to make it smaller and less noticeable so it wouldn’t be snatched away.
But on December third, right before supper, we threw caution to the wind and let joy get the better of us all.
Chapter 20
SHE BREATHES SO SLOWLY.
Inhale . . .
Silence.
Exhale.
I wait.
And wait.
Inhale.
I get up and go to the bathroom. Flush the toilet and wince as the whooshing roar echoes in the silence. Stick my head out the door, but the hallway is deserted. Sit back down in my chair by the bed. My mother is lying exactly as I left her. I pick up the nurse’s call button, a TV remote-shaped lifeline to help, and hold on to it. It’s comforting to know that if I call, someone will come.
Exhale.
The hush in the room settles around me, magnifies the sudden rasp of my mother’s feet twitching beneath the sheet, and the slight puffing sound she makes at the end of each slow breath. The longer I listen, the more unnerving it gets because they go on and on, these slight, measured breaths that don’t change or gain strength, don’t show any sign of her rising to consciousness, don’t do anything but continue, automatic, and nothing more than the basic functions of struggling organs in a failing body. These stale, foul breaths are not what made my mother who she was, the woman I followed, feared, hated, and waited for, the woman I need so much to talk to. No, that person is trapped in a sea of ammonia, and she’s the one I want, but . . .
She’s really leaving, and this time I can’t follow.
Inhale.
“Mom,” I whisper. “You’re scaring me.”
Exhale.
She’s leaving, and I’m not even eighteen. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to live? Who’ll know my life besides me? Who’ll know my family stories, or Grandma’s parakeet’s name, or that I look just like my father?
No one.
Only me, and if I forget, then my history disappears forever.
Inhale.
“Mom, you can’t do this.” The words hang in the silence. “You can’t. You have to wake up. I mean it. This isn’t funny anymore, do you hear me? Come on, you have to wake up. We have to go home right now.” I push myself out of the chair, knees trembling, and set the call button back on the bed. “Come on, give me your hand, it’s time to go.”
Exhale.
“You don’t understand,” I say when she doesn’t move. “If you stay here, bad things will happen. Don’t you see? You have to get up, Mom. You do. Right now. Please . . . ” My voice breaks and years of tears begin to fall. “Please wake up, Mom. Please.” I can’t stop crying now, because she isn’t moving, she won’t listen, she’s never listened, and although that means she’s still in there somewhere, that she is still herself, it also means what it’s always meant, that nothing’s changed and I can’t stop her, can’t save her, can’t even make her hear me . . .
Oh.
But where there’s life, there’s hope, isn’t that what Grandma Lucy used to say? and so even though I can almost see death stirring in the corner, moving to sit beside her on the bed and settling itself between us, my mother and I are not done yet.
I am going to talk to her, to tell her things, lots of things, some old and overdue, some newly discovered. And she’s going to listen because there was something else Grandma Lucy used to say, something my mother absolutely loathed and thought weak and stupid, but it wasn’t. It was strong in a way my mother never understood, for she equated kindness with weakness, caring with powerlessness, and love with terrifying vulnerability.
And maybe love is terrifying. I’m terrified now, but not in the way she would think.
I’m terrified because I hate who she is and what she’s done, I do, and yet there is still something strong and powerful between us, some kind of deep, primal bond that won’t end, won’t snap or break or change, it just remains there inside me, as solid and factual as my blood and bones—she is my mother, I am her daughter—and I don’t know what to call it because it doesn’t feel like love, not the good kind I felt for Ellie, with all my heart, but instead an instinctual pull that’s been there from the beginning, drawing me back to her again and again, this woman who has hurt me like no one else ever could, and now she’s dying and the bond is still here, inside me, and I won’t call it love or hate because emotion has nothing to do with the fact that she is my mother and I am her daughter, and we will be connected in that way forever.
Inhale.
Every family needs a peacemaker.
All right.
I will make peace, if not for her, than for me.
I lean over and pick up the ruby velvet blazer. Rise, walk around the far side of the bed and with a hitched breath, ease down onto the blanket beside my mother. Wait as she shifts but doesn’t turn over, doesn’t wake up, and when she is still again I stretch out, tucking myself close to her, spread the embroidered ruby blazer across the two of us, wrap my arm around her fragile frame, rest my head on her pillow, and with a soft, quivering sigh, close my eyes.
Exhale.
Silver Bells
IT WAS DECEMBER THIRD, A LATE Wednesday afternoon. Aunt Loretta was in the kitchen listening to Christmas carols and making pork chops and scalloped potatoes for supper, my mother was upstairs getting ready for work, and Beale was due in from the barn any second. I had already set the table and was on the floor in the living room, painting my toenails red and green and teaching Stormy how to fetch a fuzzy mouse cat toy.
“Sayre,” my mother said in a loud whisper, beckoning me from the top of the stairs.
“What?” I said, glancing over but not getting up.
“Come here.”
“I’m busy,” I said, carefully putting the last green stripe on my big toe. “What do you want?”
She made an impatient noise. “Would you just come here? I want to talk to you.”
I sighed loudly, and pushed myself up. She’d been acting weird for a whole week now, being angry and impatient and obnoxious, watching us with wary eyes, hanging back like she was trying to put distance between us all but then falling all over Beale in sudden fits of ferocious affection, eating nothing and then eating everything, and once even saying really loud, like it was an announcement in an argument no one was having, about loving her job more than anything, loving that she was earning her own money and paying her own way, what a great feeling of satisfaction it gave and how she never wanted to quit for anyone at any time because there were no guarantees in life and things changed and you never knew what was coming.
We all just sat there at the dinner table, forks poised and listening in astonishment until she finally saw our puzzled looks, got embarrassed and then defensive, and ate the rest of her supper in silence despite our efforts to draw her back out.
“What?” I said, going to the bottom of the stairs and hanging on the banister.
“Come here.” She gave me the laser eyeball, wheeled, and went into her’s and Beale’s room.
I followed her and plopped down on the edge of the bed. I wasn’t allowed in here much and never alone, and it seemed a very exotic, masculine place. Even though my mother had brought all she owned, and her makeup and stuff was spread out on the bureau, the room was still primarily Beale’s. It smelled of his deep, woodsy aftershave, was decorated in navy and brown and forest green, and his furniture was all real wood, dark and sturdy, solid and antique, like it had been passed down in his family. “What?”
My mother paced the room once, then stopped in front of a pile of clean laundry and started folding it. “We’ve been in some pretty shitty situations, haven’t we?” she said without looking at me.
>
I stared at her, bewildered. “Huh?”
“The way we’ve lived,” she said impatiently. “It’s been pretty bad.”
“Well . . . yeah,” I said cautiously because this was something that had never happened before.
She was quiet a moment, righting the sleeves of one of Beale’s work shirts that had gone inside out. “Those bonds everyone says that kids are supposed to have with their mothers; I didn’t get you till you were what, almost eight? What chance did that really give us? You were already a person by then.”
I had no idea what to say.
“I mean I wasn’t a bad mother,” she said hurriedly, filling the silence. “I held you when you were little . . . I don’t know if you remember. I know I wasn’t perfect but . . .” She fights with the shirt-sleeve, gives up, shoves it over a hanger and into the closet. “I had a lot going on back then.”
“I remember,” I said.
She flashed me a look that spoke volumes, like she had just realized I was alive and had eyes and thoughts of my own about how she’d made me grow up, that I had borne witness to the last ten years, that she wasn’t the only one who knew what she had done and how she’d been, and that I might actually remember more than she did, seeing as how she’d been drunk and high, and I’d been straight the whole time. It was a look that said Oh, no and Oh, really?
And Oh, you’d better not, all at the same time.
“So you do blame me,” she said, turning back to the laundry.
“You blame me, too,” I said, staring down at my hands, clasped in my lap.
The silence stretched, and I don’t know how it would have ended if we hadn’t heard Beale come in and call out, “I’m home. Hey, where’s my good-looking welcoming committee?”
My mother’s face changed then, and she dropped the laundry and went straight to the mirror, smoothing her hair and telling me, “Go down, Sayre. I’ll be there in a minute.”
And so I ran down the stairs, pushing aside the strange conversation with my mother because Beale was home, and when I reached the foyer he was taking off his coat and I was just about to say, “Guess what we’re having for supper?” which is what I said every night, when my mother came down the stairs and said, “Beale?”
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said, hanging his coat over the hook and smiling at her. “Where’s my kiss?” He reached for her and she stopped him, put a flat hand against his chest, and then took a deep breath, and said, “I’m pregnant.”
Chapter 21
MY MOTHER TWITCHES IN HER SLEEP.
I lift my head from the pillow and gaze down at her. She’s still lying on her side, facing away from me, and the rich velvet blazer with its delicate embroidery serves as a stark contrast to the thin cotton of her baggy, faded, green-print hospital gown.
Her fingertips flutter and the motion is delicate, graceful.
Gentle.
“Are you dreaming about Ellie, Mom?” Saying that beautiful, forbidden name aloud still feels like a violation, but I’m determined to make peace, speak all the unspoken, and I’m about to go on but the yearning rises so fast and fierce that it cracks me wide open. I bury my face in my hands until the wail that has been waiting inside me all this time is once again muted and when I can speak, I whisper, “Are we all together again?”
Sing Me to Sleep
“I’M PREGNANT,” MY MOTHER REPEATED, LIFTING her chin. “About five weeks. Think Halloween.” The words were clipped, rushed, as if each passing heartbeat mattered, as if time hadn’t stopped and shock hadn’t sucked the oxygen from the room.
Pregnant.
My mother.
And Beale.
Beale.
I caught my breath.
Beale stared down at her, all the glory of the dawn in his face, and said huskily, “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” my mother said, searching his expression.
It was the whoop that dropped me, the exultant cry that exploded from him like fireworks on the Fourth of July. It zapped the last of the strength from my knees and sent me sinking to the steps right as he swooped my mother up in an exuberant bear hug and, laughing, swung her around, legs flying and nearly kicking me in the head, kissing her and calling, “Ma! Hey, Ma, come here! Dianne and I have something to tell you!” and my mother, limp and teary eyed, laughing, and Aunt Loretta bustling in, drying her hands on her apron and taking one look at her beaming son and my blushing, glowing mother and bursting into tears, hugging them, hugging me, and saying, “Oh, Sayre, come July you’re going to be a big sister! Isn’t it wonderful?”
And that centered me again, pulled me back down to earth and made me sit up straighter because I hadn’t thought of that.
I was going to be a big sister.
Me.
Sayre Bellavia.
I looked up at them, all laughing and chattering, at my mother smiling and wiping her eyes, at Beale, shining like the noonday sun, at Aunt Loretta, who kept looking from my mother to Beale, and back again, and in one hot, shocking sweep I realized that this baby would not be me. It would not start out unwanted, hated, cursed, and left behind. No, this baby would have a father who not only adored it but who would claim and protect it, and a mother who would hold it and dress it and feed it, rock it and smile at it. This baby would have a last name that meant something, that had roots and was connected to someone instead of a random phrase that couldn’t be matched to anyone anywhere, which left it floating alone in the world. It would have a beautiful home and a real family, a grandmother and love and care.
It would never be left in a field or have to go to bed hungry or huddle in a closet with its hands over its ears because its mother and Bobby Fee were going at it on the bed. It would never watch its mother shoot up or be covered in bruises or eat from a Dumpster or be told it should never have been born.
This baby’s five-week-old life was already different from mine.
Better than mine.
Because this baby would have Beale for a father, a real father, and when my mother looked at that baby she would see Beale, who she loved, and not the old memory of a guy who had gotten her pregnant and left without a backward look.
And Beale would look at that baby and see his own kin, his blood, and not have to settle for me anymore, who just loved him.
“It isn’t fair,” I whispered, and the words were lost in the chatter but I guess my old habit of patting myself on the arm was not, because Aunt Loretta detached herself, reached out a hand to me, and said, “Well, somebody has to go check on the pork chops, so I guess it’ll be me and my best helper. Come on, sweetie. Let’s go make our magic.”
I rose, feeling heavy and sick, and when I went to slip past Beale he hugged me hard, squishing my face into his stomach and said, “This kid’s gonna have the best big sister out there and if it ever gives you a hard time, Miss Sayre Bellavia, you just come and tell me and I’ll give that little weezer what for, you hear me?” He kissed the top of my head and, releasing me, said, “Anybody messes with my number one girl, they answer to me.”
And just like that, I could smile again.
Chapter 22
THE SNOW IS LESSENING AND THE sky outside the window is a lighter shade of gray.
My mother’s legs move restlessly, twitching and jerking without direction.
The room is stifling but her skin is cool.
I have talked and talked. Whispered her name. Tapped her. Even shaken her arm a little.
No response.
I’m so tired.
Bone tired.
I get what that means now.
But I’m not done talking yet.
I—
There’s a rising commotion outside in the hall, furious whispers, and hustling, squeaking shoes.
I lift my head from the pillow and see Candy standing in the doorway. She looks terrible, drawn and manic, w
ith big dark circles under her pale eyes, scabs on her cheeks, and that thin, ratty, orangish hair flying everywhere.
The nurse appears beside her. “I’m sorry, I tried to stop her,” she says to me, giving Candy a really pissed look. “Security is on the way up.”
“You got some balls, kicking me out of this room when you’re the little fucker who walked out on her,” Candy says, scowling.
“You need to leave,” I say but don’t lie back down because Candy’s simmering and only a fool ignores that kind of warning.
Her eyebrows go up. “You’re telling me what I need to do? Oh, that’ll be the day.” She plops into the armchair next to the bed. “I been with her for her whole fucking life and now you think you’re gonna tell me to leave.” She snorts. “Right.”
“Keep your voice down,” the nurse says. “There are other patients on this floor.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Candy says, waving an irritated hand.
I stare at her, too exhausted to do battle over who has more of a right to sit with my mother’s emaciated shell. I’m her daughter, her blood and next of kin, but Candy has always been her chosen one, confidante and partner in crime. . . .
Her lifelong friend who shared everything, good and bad.
All the whys, wheres, and whens. All the how comes.
All the reasons.
And possibly the answer to the question my mother is no longer capable of answering.
I hate to do it, hate to ask Candy anything because that will only give her more power over me, knowing she has something I want but—
“Why is my last name Bellavia?” I hear myself say suddenly. “Where did that come from, anyway?”
