That Kind of Mother

by Rumaan Alam

  Priscilla slipped a knife from the block and picked up a lemon and sliced it, a single fluid action. “If you put it inside the chicken, it comes out so nice.” She slipped the fruit into the bird, put the knife in the sink, and washed her hands thoroughly.

  They looked at the chicken like generals studying a map. Then they looked at Jacob in precisely the same way.

  “What a doll.” Priscilla smiled down at him.

  Rebecca was disarmed by compliments regarding Jacob’s beauty. Did she have anything to do with it? “Why don’t you stay for dinner, Priscilla? We’ll eat early, the three of us.”

  “Why don’t I.” By some trick, everything Priscilla said sounded like a directive.

  Rebecca was an author with no real authority. “You will?”

  Priscilla took the baby upstairs to be changed. Rebecca put the chicken into the oven and set the table. To hire a nanny was to invite into the home a spectator. What did Priscilla see/overhear/imagine/divine/sense/like/dislike/report and to whom (other nannies, neighbors, her own family)? Did she tell everyone that the lady of the house did nothing all day in the spare room, listening to Bach, shuffling papers on the too-small desk? Maybe Priscilla didn’t think of them at all, once the workday ended. But if she did, it mattered to Rebecca that Priscilla think highly of her, not only that she not report her worse observations. Rebecca wanted her approval.

  Often, Rebecca could not hear the baby, but could hear Priscilla, narrating every single thing she did to Jacob. There was something soothing about this chatter. Sometimes, Rebecca had the strange sense that if she went out, something—Jacob, herself, the house, it was not clear—would vanish altogether. That she would leave and there’d be no returning, like in a folktale with an obscure moral. Mostly, though, it was normal to come back into the house from the library, the post office, and find Priscilla slicing an apple or drying her hands on the blue plaid tea towel, the woman of the house. Rebecca was overcome with the sense of reversal, that none of it—the soft leather sofa, the Robert Indiana lithograph, the Orrefors bowl of dried rose petals—was hers. She would want to slip up the stairs and push open Jacob’s bedroom door, be reassured by his placid snores that he hadn’t succumbed to crib death. But that would be insane, or worse than, an admission of distrust that would fester. What she had was harmony, and that was too precious to risk.

  Rebecca escaped into the office, and when she returned, there were vegetables arrayed on the counter: tomatoes, a fat bouquet of romaine, a yellow pepper Rebecca did not remember buying, glowing like a tourmaline on the jeweler’s velvet.

  Jacob was in his high chair, gnawing on something. The radio was playing the news. Was she a terrible mother? Rebecca felt, strangely, on the verge of tears.

  8

  HE WAS TWO. THE CHANGE HAD ACCRUED IN INCREMENTS SO THAT IT was barely noticeable. It was like getting fat, or old, or perhaps all change worked that way. Jacob turned his tiptoed hunch into a proper stride. He forced out syllables, and the adults around him learned to divine their meaning. He was less quick to abandon Priscilla’s for Rebecca’s arms. This stung but this was what Rebecca wanted. How fortunate to have found someone Jacob loved. It wasn’t a competition.

  For his entry into the so-called terrible twos, they had Christopher’s mother with them. She’d come for Thanksgiving, not a holiday in England, but Elizabeth, widowed now, needed looking after. She was in a subdued state, probably shock though a year had passed, her papery face locked in a bovine expression—and her only son worried. He’d sent the plane ticket. Elizabeth was staying in the guest room at least through the Epiphany. That would be an anniversary only Rebecca noted: the day Priscilla had first arrived at the house on Wisconsin Drive. Rebecca hung framed prints from the Smithsonian in the guest room: a Thiebaud, all those jaunty cakes, as well as a Monet, the lady with the parasol. She bought a clock radio and tuned it to the AM frequency where, in the mornings, you could hear the BBC world service.

  That Tuesday, there was grocery shopping to be done, so instead of hurrying to her office—where reading catalogs was less tempting of late; she’d actually been working!—Rebecca lingered in the kitchen making an inventory.

  “Time to bundle up.” Priscilla was holding the child’s sweatshirt open like a chivalrous man with a lady’s wrap. The boy darted away from her and she laughed.

  “Jacob, put on your sweatshirt.” Rebecca’s reprimand was never very stern, but it was important to exude authority. “I wonder if the stores are crazy—the holiday and all.”

  “You should be OK.” Priscilla scooped up the laughing child and coaxed his arms into the fleece sleeves. “What are you making?”

  “The potatoes. It’s not very glamorous, but maybe that’s just as well. I need to reserve my energy for someone’s birthday party. You’ll come, of course?” Rebecca was telling but asking. The party was scheduled for Saturday, despite the fact that after Thanksgiving everyone would be sick of food and one another. “I know it’s a holiday. But it wouldn’t be the same without you. You should ask Cheryl, too.”

  Priscilla smiled. Rebecca tried to read something else in it, a tendency she had, perhaps stupid. Sometimes a smile is a smile. She had decided at some point that Priscilla was a mystery to be solved and sometimes found herself choosing to see the mysterious in what was probably not, trying to untangle something that was not knotted. Akin, somehow, to how, in idle hours at that antique desk, she’d search out metaphors for Priscilla’s skin color, chocolate/coffee/coconut, all unimaginative at best and offensive at worst, never mind the question of why this desire to describe it in the first place. Rebecca knew that it was predictable, that it was offensive. With skin, we reach for edibles; they disarm. Black skin called chocolate because the stuff is sweet. Priscilla was sweet, but that was beside the point. Rebecca decided her skin was the color of wet earth, but not mud (ignoble, for wallowing), something elemental, vital.

  “Cheryl.” Priscilla sounded amused. She handed Jacob a big plastic spoon from the dish rack. He explored it seriously. “I could do that.”

  “Unless she has to work.” Rebecca wanted to give her an option. She finished rinsing the glass in her hands and wiped the marble counter. The advantage was Priscilla’s; she had access to almost everything of importance in Rebecca’s life. Rebecca was eager—fine, desperate—for some hard facts. That was love, maybe, wanting to know.

  “Saturdays she starts at eight. Night shift, double.” Priscilla knelt to take the spoon from Jacob, who was near poking himself in the eye. She handed him a book. He put it in his mouth. “But she likes it. She’s stubborn. Her own woman, since she was a girl. She used to tell me, Mommy, go away, I’m playing.”

  This made sense to Rebecca; the apple and the tree. Priscilla herself had to have been the same as a child as she was now: placid, unflappable, independent, reassuring. “That sounds punishing. But we would love to have her. You’ve met my baby, I can’t believe I’ve never met yours.” The hard work of being a nurse sounded appealing to Rebecca, the honesty of that long stint, its hard-earned exhaustion. Some nights, Rebecca’s mind would spin through the minor events that distinguished that day from the previous, and she would begin to imagine, in horrible, specific detail, the next morning: the warmth of the coffee through the porcelain of the mug, the glide of the drawer as she opened the dishwasher to put away the clean things, the frosty cloud that would spill from the freezer as she chose something for that’s night dinner. Then she’d return from this reverie and it would still be night, the morning she’d just lived hours in the future.

  “We’ve all got to work.” Priscilla was a realist. “It’s as good as anything, I imagine. No job is all fun. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a job.”

  Rebecca wanted to know: What was not fun about Priscilla’s job? What could she do to make it more pleasant, for surely its unpleasantness would have to do with her; no one could find fault with Jacob, who was all smiles and soft skin, sweet sounds and glowing eyes, that comforting way he clutched th
e body of whoever was holding him. You are loved. A baby tells you that. That, or You are needed.

  Saturday was white skies and bad wind. Rebecca’s father and mother came with two gifts, beautifully wrapped. Her father was known, in the family, as a particularly skilled gift-wrapper. Judith seemed harried; Steven seemed genially disinterested; and their daughter, Jennifer, was plotting to watch television. Christine and Tim were, perhaps, bickering, though Michelle seemed pleased to join in the general chaos. The doorbell rang while Rebecca was riffling the drawers in search of the birthday candles. She continued searching, knowing someone else would answer it. Moments later, Priscilla stepped into the kitchen. “Rebecca, I want you to meet my daughter.”

  Cheryl, hesitating at the threshold, looked like Priscilla: broad shoulders, hair worn short, skin the same shade of deep brown, but more lustrous, because of youth and moisturizer. Cheryl wore a long white sweater and fashionable boots.

  “Come in, please.” Rebecca waved her in like the ground crew does an arriving airplane. “Oh goodness, it’s so wonderful to meet you at last.” That Priscilla had rung the doorbell struck Rebecca as noteworthy.

  “Cheryl.” The girl said her own name and held out her hand, perfunctory but not without warmth. “It’s so nice to meet you, thank you for having me.”

  It was hard not to be struck by familial similarity, especially when you had strong feelings for one of the parties involved. Rebecca considered the outstretched hand. She took her proffered hand, not in the masculine, business-closed manner, but as you would a child’s, a parent’s. “I feel like I should hug you.” She did, felt immediately ridiculous.

  Priscilla laughed as she hung her jacket on one of the kitchen chairs. “My goodness.” Rebecca always felt that Priscilla was hovering around some form of direct address—ma’am, something—but stopping short of whatever noun she was reaching for. “And where is the birthday boy?”

  “He’s around here somewhere. Oh, Priscilla, he’ll be so excited to see you. His big cousins and you, his favorite people. He’s not going to believe his luck.”

  “I’ll go say my hellos then.”

  “Go, go.” Rebecca shooed her away. “Cheryl, keep me company. I need to find these stupid birthday candles. The kind of thing you use twice a year, I can never remember where I stash them.” Rebecca could hear the enthusiasm in her voice. She was talking to this woman as though she were a girl, but Cheryl was near her own age. “It’s so good to meet you at last. Your mother talks about you all the time.”

  Cheryl sat down. “Yes, I’ve heard so much about you. And Jacob, of course.”

  “Cheryl, we have mineral water, there’s grapefruit juice, and I’m going to make a pot of coffee. Or there’s tea, if you’d rather. My husband is English; we always have tea.”

  “Just some water will be fine.”

  Rebecca handed her a glass, noticed her manicure, nails trimmed short, the color of flamingos. “I love your nails,” she said. “I’m glad you were able to come. I know you have work. I don’t know how you do it. You’re a superhero.”

  “I have to be in around eight.” Cheryl sounded resigned, but also pleased with herself. “Just once a week, it’s not bad.”

  “Well, I’m impressed.” Rebecca couldn’t imagine it. “Anyway, we have you now, that’s what matters.”

  Cheryl was taking in the yellow kettle, the scarred butcher-block countertop, the ceramic crock stuffed with well-used spoons. “You have a lovely home.”

  “It’s a disaster.” It wasn’t, though, and Rebecca knew it. She kept an orderly kitchen and her standards, already high, were exacting during her mother-in-law’s stay. “But thank you. Do you live in the District?”

  “I live with my mother.” Cheryl sipped her water. “I thought you knew.”

  “I didn’t.” Priscilla lived in Silver Spring, forty minutes by Metro bus. Rebecca couldn’t picture the place, didn’t know if it was a house, an apartment, a town house. She didn’t know if there was a man there. “That must be nice. I bet your mother is a great cook. She’s totally spoiled me by making me lunch. Before, I’m embarrassed to say I mostly ate cereal. Now, salads, with tuna, and garbanzo beans, and diced celery. Above and beyond the call of duty, your mother. Jacob adores her. We all do.”

  Priscilla reentered the kitchen, shaking a little cardboard box of candles. “Look at what I found.”

  “You’re a genius, where were those? I’ve been in every drawer in the house.”

  “The sideboard, with the fancy napkins.” Priscilla’s always-gentle reproof. “Cheryl, come say hello to everyone.”

  Cheryl smiled at Rebecca and followed her mother into the dining room. Rebecca spooned the coffee into the gold filter, losing count, as she always did.

  Jacob could relish the gifts but not unwrap them. Priscilla assisted in this task while Rebecca took photographs. Christopher sat beside his mother and shared the occasional chuckle. Lorraine and Greg watched appreciatively, Steven wandered into the next room to watch television, the ambient roar of a crowd at a sporting event. The boy’s aunts sipped chardonnay and applauded at every present that was revealed—now a wooden truck, now a Dr. Seuss book, now a plastic doctor’s kit.

  After the bounty had been revealed, the kids ate cupcakes and ran in and out of rooms, bumping into things; the adults drank coffee and talked about Paul Simon, the senator not the singer, though inevitably talk of the one led to talk of the other. Jacob, practically vibrating with energy, fidgeted on Rebecca’s lap, then fell asleep.

  “I’ll take him.” Priscilla lifted the boy’s hot, sticky body off Rebecca’s.

  “You don’t have to.” Rebecca’s protest was halfhearted. It was tiring, Thanksgiving and beyond, especially when you added into that having a guest. Under normal circumstances, home would be a respite from the holiday’s itinerary: slip off shoes, bra, watch; turn on the television, drink some wine, pick at leftovers; shower for too long, slip into bed naked and still damp, wait for Christopher, his attentive tongue at her ear, and now that they were his alone, again, her breasts. But his mother lingered. They slept beside each other mostly chaste as pensioners, though one night Christopher had quietly eased himself on top of her, into her, stifling his heavy breath with the percale sham. Elizabeth seemed to know it (guests know it) and was quiet to the point of mousiness; she tarried in her room with a cup of tea in the morning. She seemed amused, but only vaguely so, by the sight of Jacob fiddling with his breakfast. Some days, Elizabeth explored—she was spry enough to be sent off to Dumbarton Oaks with a bus map and bottle of Evian—but other days she sat and read until Christopher hurried home at six. Those days, Rebecca was unable to work. Jacob would be asleep, Elizabeth would be paging patiently through The New Yorker, Priscilla would be eating canned minestrone, her pencil scratching as she did the crossword, but to Rebecca it was a cacophony, the accrued sounds of all these people existing at one time. She missed the harmony of her days with Priscilla and Jacob, and wished Elizabeth away, and hated herself for it. An old widow deserved pity.

  Priscilla, efficient, was back in time to hear Christopher assert that Bush would be the first vice president in a century and a half to get the promotion. Priscilla put one discarded cup inside another—Judith and Steven had left; Christine and Tim had left; they were, frankly, tired of one another—then, thinking the better of it, sat. “The governor, Dukakis,” Priscilla said. “He seems like a good man.”

  “Quite so.” Christopher peeled the sticky paper from the base of a cupcake. “You’re right, Priscilla. He’s a decent sort, which is why it probably won’t be him, in the end. I don’t know how much decency matters in politics now.”

  “The cupcakes turned out well, didn’t they?” Rebecca took one, had already had one, but what did it matter. She wanted to savor the day’s success, and she wanted everyone to leave her alone. “I’ve had too many already.”

  “The children loved them.” Priscilla was piling dirty napkins one atop the other. “I ate two, too,
so go ahead, Rebecca.”

  “Leave it.” Rebecca was scolding, but kindly. “You’ve been running after the children all afternoon, and it’s supposed to be a party.”

  “The kids certainly had a nice time.” Lorraine had more to say. “But the way Jennifer is with the television. It can’t be healthy. It’s just because Steven won’t allow it at home. Whatever is forbidden takes on this terrible allure for kids.”

  Greg shook his head. “Well, never mind.”

  “Don’t think she didn’t notice her dad was in there watching the thing. I mean, talk about setting an example.” Lorraine fixed her eyes on Cheryl.

  Cheryl sipped her tea and said nothing.

  Rebecca felt a pang of something for her ever-disappointed mother. She knew she ought to clear the table, knew the afternoon had come to its conclusion, knew Cheryl had to go to work, knew Priscilla wasn’t being paid to keep them company, knew Christopher would be crabby if he didn’t have time to read the newspaper and smoke a cigarette, knew Elizabeth needed a lie-down for an hour, then a cup of tea, and knew that for that hour that Elizabeth’s nap and Jacob’s nap overlapped, the house would be deliciously hers again.

  Priscilla seemed to sense, too, that the spell had been broken, and she pushed away from the table, and Rebecca did not object when she began to clear.

  “You can take this, dear.” Elizabeth placed the gilt-lipped china cup onto its companion saucer and slid them in Priscilla’s general direction.

  “I’ll do that.” Rebecca plucked the cup up, milky tea splashing as she did.

  They were at home in the kitchen, she and Priscilla, and circled the room in a practiced choreography, Priscilla scraping scraps into the garbage disposal before placing the plates into the dishwasher, Rebecca tossing the blue napkins that had been twisted into sticky balls into the trash.

  Rebecca’s ears were hot and her throat dry; she was angry. She wanted to offer some explanation for Elizabeth’s rudeness, but the slight was too great, and it was not hers. Priscilla herself seemed much the same as she always did: unfathomable, maybe even happy. Rebecca worried about her tendency to think of Priscilla as some impossible-to-solve mystery: at worst, it was some misguided sense that her blackness rendered her other, instead of human. Less bad but still troubling was the possibility that Rebecca simply didn’t understand other people that well, in which case, what did that say about her work, never mind the entirety of her life?