White Dresses

by Mary Pflum Peterson

  I watched as my mother nearly dropped the glass of wine in her hand.

  “You really want to come to Beaver Dam?”

  “Why not?” Dean said, gently pushing. “I want to see where Mary’s from.”

  My mother studied her drink.

  “I tell you what. Why don’t we do this? Since you’re getting married in Milwaukee, let’s just keep everything—­including our visits—­in Milwaukee. You can see Beaver Dam some other time,” my mother said. “Maybe next year.”

  At this, Dean nodded agreeably—­confused, but resigned to the fact that he might never see my childhood home.

  “All right, Anne,” he said to her, looking at me. “If that’s what you want.”

  And I grew resigned to the fact that I might never see my childhood home again. Not for a pre-­wedding shower I’d always assumed I’d have there for old friends. (My mother never even offered to organize one.) Not for a post-­wedding brunch. Not, it seemed, ever.

  Although Dean and I were never formally invited to the house, we were given an inadvertent glimpse of the place and its ongoing state of decay the day Dean insisted upon taking my mother’s suitcase to her car following one of our wedding-­planning weekends at the Pfister. It was February 2005 and at this point we were flying back every six weeks to take care of final wedding details.

  “I can handle my bags, Dean,” my mother said, protesting. But Dean was undeterred.

  “No, Anne, I’m going to insist on this. If you’re not going to let us take you home, at least let me take you to your car.”

  My mother was nearing seventy. Her arthritic knees were hurting her badly, and Dean was determined to show his future mother-­in-­law that he was a gentleman.

  I pulled my mother into a hug as Dean led the way to my mother’s car, located in the dark recesses of the Pfister’s parking garage. My mother pulled out of my grasp, trying to catch up to him, to head him off. But she was too slow.

  “Dean, no, really!” my mother cried, hobbling to catch him. Her voice grew higher as she called across the garage. “I’d prefer to go to the car by myself!”

  It was too late. Dean was upon the car, and as he opened the trunk, a veritable garbage dump was revealed: newspapers, brown paper grocery bags, white plastic bags from Shopko. There were fast-­food bags from Hardee’s and Culver’s and Styrofoam cups and cream packets from McDonald’s. I watched as a stunned Dean took a step back from the trunk. There was no room for a suitcase.

  The interior of the car was no better. The entire backseat and the passenger seat were piled high with debris: more empty Styrofoam coffee cups, more fast-­food bags, canvas bags full of student assessments and school reports, an assortment of Jolly Ranchers and stickers and Hot Wheels intended for her young students. The car was worse than I had ever seen it—­even worse than on the day of my grandmother’s memorial ser­vice. The debris reached up past the windows, as if the junk were vying for positions from which to watch passing traffic.

  Looking at all of that stuff, I remembered a conversation I’d shared with my mother the month before when she’d failed to call me back for three entire days.

  She didn’t answer the home phone. Not even in the middle of the night. Failing to return my call in the course of one day was unusual, but it had happened on occasion. Failing to return the call in three days was cause for alarm. When I finally reached her in the middle of the school day on the fourth day by calling the school’s main office, my mother laughed good-­naturedly when she heard the concern in my voice.

  “Mom, where have you been?” I asked, breathing a heavy sigh of relief.

  “I’m afraid I’ve been phone-­less,” she said. “I didn’t call you back because I didn’t know you called. I managed to misplace my phones this week.”

  “How do you misplace all of your phones?” I asked.

  “You know how it goes. Sometimes things go missing in the house,” she told me with a laugh.

  At first, I thought she was hiding something from me, that the missing phone was just an excuse. But looking at the mess of the car in the Pfister parking garage, I realized my mother had been telling the truth. When I’d called and called and called, the phones had likely been buried beneath piles of trash in the house, the likes of which Dean peered at in my mother’s car now.

  Watching Dean watch the car, my mother’s nervousness turned to testiness. “I told you—­I didn’t want you to see the car, Dean. It’s been a busy time. I’ve been moving classrooms. I just didn’t get things cleaned before our visit.”

  I had heard all the lines before. I eyed the car, horrified. There was scarcely room for my mother to sit. I had no idea where she’d manage to fit the suitcase or what she’d do if she had to make any sudden movements with the car on the drive home to Beaver Dam. A sharp left turn would send a mountain of trash into her seat, or worse, onto her foot operating the gas pedal and the brake.

  Dean nodded at my mother good-­naturedly, keeping to himself any feelings of surprise or disgust.

  “You shouldn’t be lifting any suitcase,” he said reassuringly, looking my mother in the eye. “I’m here to help you now. Understand?”

  If I could have hugged my future husband then, thrown my arms around him without embarrassing my mother, I would have. I don’t think there’s been a moment I’ve ever loved him more. But I couldn’t hug him then without further humiliating my still-­proud mother. So I looked away, trying to hide the tears of love, gratitude—­and relief.

  Moments later, as she drove off with that strange look of pride and shame etched on her face, I began to better understand the source of her ongoing lobs about my wedding dress, her hesitation about the nuptials. I was moving forward to a bright, shining future replete with a gallant knight named Dean. She was stuck where she was, in a decaying house, a foul-­smelling car. If anything, she was sinking fast.

  Later, back in the safety of our hotel room, Dean would ask me about what he had seen.

  “How long has this been going on?” he asked. His tone wasn’t angry. It was his lawyer tone. He was seeking facts.

  “For years,” I said, my voice breaking. “But it was never this bad.”

  “We need to help her,” he said.

  “I’ve tried,” I said, the tears starting now.

  I felt naked. I’d been sleeping with Dean for months. He’d seen every square inch of my body. And never before had I felt more vulnerable.

  “I’ve tried to clean up,” I said, gulping. “I’ve tried to hire ­people over the years. She just won’t let anyone in to help.”

  “Well, now I’m here,” Dean said. He moved from the doorway of the room in which he’d been standing and came to join me on the bed, folding me into his arms. I buried my face in his cashmere sweater and breathed deeply.

  “Maybe,” Dean said, kissing my salty cheek, “it’s a two-­person job.”

  The last night I spent with my mother as a single woman reaffirmed for me just how bad things were growing, not only when it came to her housekeeping, but also when it came to her mental health. For three decades—­through my childhood and then my young womanhood—­my mother and I had shared hotel rooms on trips to see her parents, her siblings, my brother. Our late-­night routine was always the same: we’d get a hotel room with a pair of queen-­sized beds, and bed down in a darkened room to chat about our respective lives and watch what we liked to call “junk TV”: late-­night talk shows, reruns of Friends and Cheers, old movies. It was fun, relaxing “girl time.”

  This was precisely what I had counted on—­looked forward to—­the night before the wedding when Dean walked me back to the hotel room in the Pfister just before midnight in the wake of our wildly successful rehearsal dinner. We had hosted 150 out-­of-­town guests in the Pfister’s grand Rose Room, presented our parents with beautiful paintings and drawings depicting their parents, including a beautif
ul sketch of Albert and Aurelia Diener for my mother. We’d wowed our guests with musical entertainment and fine dining, which included a sumptuous croquembouche. But the atmosphere in the hotel room was anything but fun and relaxing moments after Dean kissed me good night.

  My mother greeted me at the door, a bundle of nerves. “Where were you?” she asked.

  “We had post-­party drinks up at Blu,” I said, referring to the Pfister’s trendy bar, which overlooked the city. More than fifty of our friends had joined us in raising some post-­party glasses.

  I hurriedly put on my nightshirt in the bathroom and climbed into the bed across from my mother’s, anxious to talk about the success of the rehearsal dinner, the excitement of the day to come. I thought we might reminisce about my childhood or I might listen as my mother doled out the sort of sage advice mothers were always giving daughters on soap operas moments before the heroine took a trip down the aisle. I thought, if nothing else, my mother might let me take control of the television in my final hours of singlehood and that we might enjoy a good chick flick, the way we often did in Beaver Dam on Sunday afternoons when I was growing up.

  But my mother, gripping the remote control tightly in her right hand, seemed uninterested in doling out advice or reminiscing. And she refused to turn the channel from the Law and Order rerun she’d been watching.

  “I like this episode. And I was here first,” she snapped.

  “Can we at least turn off some of these lights?” I asked, reaching to turn off the pair of lights that divided the two beds.

  “No!” she snapped, swatting at my arm before I could turn off either lamp.

  “But, Mom, it’s late. And I’m getting married tomorrow. If I can’t watch what I want on TV, at least let me go to sleep.”

  “This is the way I sleep,” she said. “And if you don’t like it, you can find your own hotel room.”

  I raised myself onto one elbow and stared in disbelief. My mother refused to return my gaze, opting instead to raise the volume on the television so that she could drown me out.

  “Mom, I need to sleep,” I moaned.

  “I like the lights on,” my mother said, refusing to budge. Lights, she said, were part of her new sleep routine.

  I tossed and turned, worried about the dark circles that were bound to form beneath my eyes, wondering if my veil could hide them from the unforgiving lens of the wedding photographer’s camera. I watched my mother from my bed in sad silence. She fixated first on Vincent D’Onofrio’s detective character, attempting to crack a Law and Order case. Later she turned on an old black-­and-­white movie on AMC. Then came a series of infomercials imploring her to purchase ponytail devices or fountain of youth serums.

  When I begged once more at three thirty to please let me turn off the lights, my mother snapped, “Tomorrow night you can turn out whatever lights you’d like.”

  I turned over and placed a pillow on top of my head. One thing was clear: just as I was gaining a husband, I was losing a mother.

  The next morning I awoke tired and achy. But it didn’t matter. I was getting married. And I knew as I sat down to breakfast with my beloved childhood friend–turned-­bridesmaid, Kim, that was all that mattered.

  Four hours before the wedding Mass was slated to begin, Marie, the hair and makeup artist I had flown in from New York for the occasion, lovingly sat me down in the suite Dean and I had rented for our wedding night and meticulously applied concealer and powder to the areas around my eyes.

  Moments before I was to walk down the aisle, I stood in the back of the cathedral in my Vera Wang gown, my parents at my sides. I couldn’t decide what made more sense—­to walk down the aisle alone or with my mom and dad. In the end, I wanted them both there. They had put me on this earth. I wanted them to help bridge the gap between my old life and the new one awaiting me.

  I was feeling calm, feeling happy, and then I heard it: the first strains of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, the processional I’d selected. Suddenly, the calmness escaped me and I felt in its place overwhelming emotion. I began to cry.

  My mother was at my side in an instant, presenting me with a white handkerchief.

  “Mary, it’s okay, sweetheart,” she said, blotting gently at my eyes.

  Her tone was warm, reassuring. Just as it had been when she had held me in her lap as a child. Just as it had been when she nursed me back to health after spinal surgery. This was the mother I had needed last night. She had been so unpleasant then. She was back to her old nurturing form now.

  “You have to know, everything is going to be all right.”

  She was right. As it turns out, the wedding day was all that I dreamed it would be. Dean was handsome, crying as he waited for me at the end of the aisle. My girlfriends looked resplendent in the white satin Vera Wang bridesmaid dresses that I’d carefully selected as part of our all-­white wedding. Guests were presented with watermelon martinis as they entered the museum in honor of that first drink Dean bought me the night we met. The flowers—­including the white lilies of the valley I’d instructed the florist to pick from around my childhood home—­were breathtaking. Trudy Diener would have been proud.

  Dean and I danced and marveled at the vision of white we had helped to create. My mother had started that affinity for white. It had blossomed into a night more magical than I could ever have imagined possible. White was the perfect blank palette from which to launch a new life.

  Even my mother marveled at the evening as she stood, microphone in hand, to greet our guests midway through our dinner. “Tonight is a night unlike any other,” she said. “It is a night unto itself. Never have all of us gathered like this—­and never will we gather like this again.”

  She never acknowledged to me her moodiness from the night before, never apologized. I didn’t expect her to. The mood swings hurt. But I took comfort in seeing the joy on her face as she took in the beauty of the night. All of her siblings except for Patty had flown in to be with her. She delighted in their company, laughed loudly at their jokes, introduced them to the two dozen teacher friends she’d invited.

  I saw her cry only once, when I asked an old friend to serenade her with her favorite John Denver tune, “Annie’s Song.” Listening to the lyrics, “Come let me hold you, let me give my life to you,” my mother melted, resting her head on the shoulder of her brother Al.

  At the close of the song, I ran to hug her.

  “How did you remember that was my favorite song?” my mother asked. “How did you find the sheet music?”

  “Because I love you, Mom.”

  Two mornings after the wedding, after we’d gotten a chance to visit with our out-­of-­town guests and take in a Brewers game, Dean led me—­half awake, half asleep—­down through the Pfister’s lobby. It was five A.M., and a town car stood waiting to sweep us off to our honeymoon. Yawning, I was preparing to hand my bags to the driver when I spied my mother wobbling toward us on her arthritic knees.

  My eyes widened in surprise.

  “Mom, it’s early,” I said. “You should be sleeping.”

  “I don’t sleep so well these days,” my mother said. “You know that. Besides, I wanted to see you one more time.”

  I dropped my bag and hugged her, unexpectedly beginning to cry.

  “I love you,” I said, hating that my departure meant I was leaving her alone. Again.

  “I love you, dear daughter,” she said, leading me to Dean, who had begun to work with the bellhop and driver to load the car.

  “But no tears,” she said. “This is a happy time.”

  “We’ll be back this summer,” I said, watching Dean and the driver load my wedding gown into the car. “We’ll come for your birthday. And you need to come and see us.”

  “I know,” my mother said, nodding. “I know.”

  “Take care of this one,” my mother said as she hugged Dean.

 
“You know I will,” he said, hugging her back.

  Then it was my turn to hug my mother once more.

  “It was beautiful, wasn’t it?” I asked her, referring not only to the wedding, but to everything.

  “More than you’ll ever know,” she said.

  “Even my nightgown?” I asked.

  “Even your nightgown.”

  Then, pushing me gently into the backseat of the car, she looked at me intently and pressed her face up close to mine.

  “Be happy,” my mother said.

  And at that, I cried harder, knowing that she meant it.

  Chapter 11

  Vera Wang Nightshirt

  December 15, 2010

  Taking a step back from the full-­length mirror that hung on the back of the bathroom door, I studied my reflection and sighed.

  On the upside, my blond shoulder-­length hair looked good—­better, in any case, than it did when I wasn’t pregnant: thicker, shinier, healthier. On the downside, I looked like I’d swallowed a basketball, and the bridge of my nose seemed to be widening by the day. The plum-­pink nightshirt I’d slipped into moments ago barely covered my growing tummy, which was now seven months pregnant. As recently as a month ago, the garment had hung in pretty folds and pleats that accentuated perky breasts and toned legs. Now it looked like a fashion misfire. That’s what the third trimester was like—­one day clothes fit, the next day they didn’t. I should have been used to all of this by now. This was my third pregnancy. But the absence of a waistline still took me by surprise.

  “You okay in there?” called a voice on the other side of the door.

  It was Dean. I must have lost track of the time. Again. Between working full-­time and caring for the two boys, I never had a moment alone. Except when I closed the door to the bathroom in those few moments after I awoke in the morning and again at moments like this—­at night, when I slipped into my nightgown and literally let my hair down.

  “I’m okay,” I said, still studying my complexion. “It’s just . . .”