The Real Mother

by Judith Michael

  “And the printouts?”

  “Appliances, kitchenware, linens, the things I’m used to and like. I’m keeping my apartment in New York, so I’m starting from scratch here.”

  “For yourself and your wife? And children?”

  “For myself,” he said shortly.

  There was a brief silence. “You mentioned a large house,” Sara said. “Are you thinking of houseguests, or entertaining?”

  “Both.”

  “And you would want maids’ living quarters?”

  “No, I have no need of live-in help. A housekeeper during the day, and names of caterers when I need them. Can I call on you for those, too?”

  “Yes. And plumber, electrical, furnace… whatever you need.” Sara glanced at her notebook. “How much land do you require? A yard? A garden? A terrace?”

  “They aren’t at the top of my list, but a terrace and a garden would be pleasant. I’m not looking for an estate.”

  Sara nodded. “Two of the houses on my list are in a neighborhood a few blocks north of the Hancock Building; I think either of them would meet your needs.”

  “The Gold Coast. Colorful if not completely accurate. Yes, I’d like to see them.”

  That night, Sara was humming as she stirred the veal stew she had made the night before. On her way home that afternoon, she had stopped to see her mother, and the two of them had had tea as she talked about her day. “So much better than yesterday, and in fact better than most days. I don’t know why that surprises me. I’m always expecting patterns: today was unpleasant so there will be a bunch of unpleasant days until the pendulum swings back, and then the pattern will be reversed.” She laughed slightly. “We’re so desperate, all of us, to believe there’s order in everything. I’ll bet Lew Corcoran is sure there are patterns and he controls them, so he does what he wants and treats people any way he likes, including his wife…and you’d feel sorry for her, except that she doesn’t seem a lot kinder than he is. But I’ll bet sometimes he wakes up at three or four in the morning feeling uneasy and worried and wondering if he really understands anything. At least I hope he does. In fact, I hope he can’t sleep at all; I hope he lies there, in the dark, with no one to impress, and knows exactly how unpleasant he is, how arrogant, uncouth, mean, solipsistic—goodness, I sound like I’m still talking to Abby. Poor Abby, I really jumped on her…”

  Her mother smiled with one side of her mouth, a smile always touched by sadness, no matter how much humor or pleasure might be in it. Once she had been lovely, lithe and vibrant, now she was faded, shrunken, her chestnut hair streaked gray and white, her face drawn, her once silken complexion lined with sorrow and helpless rage. Her children resembled her, but Abby was the one with her remarkable beauty: in her, Tess saw herself as she was before her stroke, and the pain and joy of looking into that illusive mirror made her feel uniquely bound to Abby, her daughter and her past. She loved all her children, she ached to be a mother and companion to them again, but it was with Abby that Tess was a dancing girl again, whirling toward a horizon that had no inkling of tragedy.

  She smiled her half smile at Sara, and held out her good hand, palm up: a question about Abby.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you what happened.” Sara pulled her chair closer and refilled their cups, feeling herself relax into the slow pace and stillness of her mother’s room. She had furnished it herself when she acknowledged, finally, that she could not take care of everyone; that the nursing home was their only choice. A week after her mother was moved in, Sara had transformed the large room, filling it with beauty instead of cold anonymity. She covered the bed with a log-cabin quilt, her mother’s favorite pattern, and at the foot folded a cashmere afghan in bright red, her mother’s favorite color. She set a reading lamp with a stained-glass shade on the bed table and a matching floor lamp beside the elegant, brocade armchair in which her mother spent her days. Three vivid paintings of the Italian countryside brightened the pale yellow walls, and a branching fig tree in a wide brass planter stood beside the window that took almost the whole wall. She found a small Oriental rug on which her mother’s feet rested when she sat in the brocade chair, and a carpenter built a stand that pivoted across the chair so that her mother could read or work with her good hand on needlepoints of scenes from her favorite books. At first her stitches were wildly erratic, but little by little she had learned to control the simple up and down movements of pushing the needle from above or below, and she took pride and delight in her work. As if to remind herself of how much she had improved, she kept on the table beside her bed her first finished piece, framed and signed in stitches, TESS HAYDEN.

  Now the needlework stand held Tess’s teacup and a porcelain teapot Sara had found in an antique shop in Wisconsin, and the two women sat quietly, watching a soft April rain film the window with a silvery sheen. “It rained last Wednesday, too,” Sara said. “I had to work late, and Abby was furious because she wanted to do homework with a group of friends at Sue’s house—you remember Sue Poston: the tall one with a braid to her waist and a kind of loping walk; once you said it reminded you of a giraffe; I loved that; it was so perfect—”

  She stopped, staring at the rain, forcing back the pain that clutched her even now, more than three long years after a stroke paralyzed her mother on her right side and left her unable to speak in anything but grunts and incomprehensible mumbles that left her in tears as she struggled to form words. “You always had the right word, the right image…”

  She turned, and saw despair in her mother’s eyes. “Anyway,” she said briskly, “Abby was not happy when she had to wait for me, but of course she got over it; she always does, because she understands that I can’t always control what time I… oh, and speaking of that, let me tell you about dinner last night. Your creative son Doug invented a new kind of earplug. And then I’ll tell you about Abby. Confession time,” she added ruefully.

  She told the story in vivid detail, scrunching up her eyes as Doug had done—“as if he couldn’t see or hear me”—and mimicking his “Sorry, sorry, sorry Sary,” adding, “Which was pretty clever, I thought,” and laughing so that her mother’s eyes could laugh with her.

  “But I did yell at him,” she said after a minute. “I never mean to; I tell myself to keep my mouth shut and wait until I calm down, but then my mouth opens, almost by itself, and out come all the words I’d just been telling myself not to say. I did the same with Abby when she started sprinkling everything she said with four-letter words. I know she does it for effect—all her friends think it’s cool, but it gets to me, and I let her have it, and then I hear my voice and I hate what I sound like. I know I shouldn’t yell at them, I should be reasonable so that they can understand why I’m upset, but I’m too upset to do that, so what comes out is—” She shrugged. “I suppose all parents go through that.”

  But I’m not a parent, she thought again. And I probably never will be. I’m twenty-seven, and this is my only family, and no prospects for my own.

  But this is my own family. Of course it is. I just meant…

  She saw Tess’s frown, and said lightly, “It’s really nothing, you know; mainly, I was in a bad mood, and when that happens the others get the brunt of it. It’s not fair to them. So I apologized.” She smiled. “They’ll all be happy tonight, because I’m in such a fine mood.”

  Again her mother held out her hand, palm up.

  “Oh, because of my first client of the day, a man named Reuben Lister, from New York. Polite, civilized, pleasant, and he’d done his homework; he knew what he wanted, he had pictures and printouts, he’d studied Chicago. He made my job so easy; he was everyone’s dream of the perfect client. He even likes people; he remembered Donna Soldana’s name.”

  Her mother’s hand rose, palm up.

  “You’ve never met her, but I’ve told you about her; my secretary who left home because her father—” She hesitated. She had never told her mother the whole story. “Because she didn’t get along with her father. She rented a room nea
r her house, to be near her mother, but her father found her and was making threats, so one day after work we found her a place in a building a little farther from home, but close enough. She’s fine there, and she and her mother see each other in her sister’s house in Forest Park. She told me she still wakes up with nightmares, though; how terrible to live in constant fear.”

  Her mother’s head drooped to the side.

  “I know,” Sara said quickly. “Constant sadness is just as bad.” She stood and bent to kiss her mother. “You’re tired, and I have to get dinner; veal stew that I made last night just before I went to bed. I’ll see you in a couple of days. I love you.”

  Her mother’s finger jabbed at her.

  “What? What haven’t I told you?”

  Her mother pointed at her briefcase.

  “My work? But I’ve told you about yesterday and today… Oh.” She smiled. “Reuben. Yes, I liked him.” Her mother pointed at her hand and Sara sighed. “I’m not about to marry him, Mother.” She smiled again. “But I am going to lunch with him next week. He said he wanted help in getting to know Chicago.”

  Her mother’s hand returned to its place in her lap, restlessly fingering the afghan’s soft yarn.

  Sara kissed her again. “I’m going. And I love you, even if you assume every time I like someone, I’m ready to marry him.”

  Her mother touched her cheek.

  “I know, you want me to be taken care of. But there are three people in our house who need to be taken care of right now, and I’m thinking of them, not me. I’ll think about me when Doug goes to college. It’s only another seven years; I’ll still be young. Anyway, that’s the way it is, and it’s fine.” She kissed her mother and walked to the door. “I love you, I’ll see you this weekend.”

  Veal stew, she thought as she stood at the stove, stirring with a longhandled wooden spoon that had belonged to her grandmother. My mother and grandmother and great-grandmother made veal stew; theirs tasted about the same as mine. Something else my mother lost: years and years of holding her place in that continuous line, sharing the lives of her children and grandchildren, watching them become part of the world, until she died in old age, knowing the next generation was firmly in place, and the line intact. Now all she can do is hear about it, from me, from Doug and Carrie and Abby. A shadow play of the life she expected to live.

  “You look serious but happy,” Carrie said from the doorway. “I’m glad you’re happy. I’m going to set the table.”

  “That makes me even happier.”

  “Why are you happy?”

  “Because I had a good day, because I stopped to see Mother on the way home and she was glad to see me, and because I have a cheerful, loving family overflowing with goodwill and the desire to be helpful.”

  “Oh, my,” said Abby, walking into the kitchen. “You’re preparing to ask us for something.”

  “I am always prepared to ask you for something.” Sara tossed her an apron. “Salad and dressing. And please slice the bread. Where is Doug?”

  “Watching a video and making something out of clay.”

  “That is exactly the answer you gave yesterday.”

  “He’s doing exactly what he was doing yesterday. And the day before, and the day before that, and every evening at this time.”

  “Well, let’s get him in here; he can help Carrie set the table. And then I want to hear what you’ve all done today. And after that, I’ll tell you about a man I saw in a hotel lobby today.”

  “What kind of a man?”

  “He was selling something.”

  “What was he selling?”

  “I can’t tell you; that’s part of the surprise. Go on now, get your brother.”

  Dinner was lively and relaxed—so much depended on her moods, Sara thought, and felt guilty because she did not do a better job of controlling herself so that all their times could be happy ones—and when Abby brought in a chiffon cake she had made after school, Doug shouted, “I want to know what the guy was selling.”

  “Don’t shout,” said Carrie.

  “I like to shout. What was he selling, Sara?”

  Sara paused dramatically. “Noses.”

  “WHAT?”

  “He was selling noses. You could look through a book of pictures, and choose the one you want, and he’d put you in a trance and wave a wand, and when you woke up, there you’d be with a new nose.”

  “That isn’t true,” said Carrie. “I wouldn’t even write that in a story; nobody would believe it.”

  “If Sara says it, maybe it is true,” Doug said with a frown.

  “Oh, dear.” Sara leaned over and kissed him. “Even Sara exaggerates now and then, little one.”

  “So is any of it true?” Abby asked.

  “Yes, oddly enough. A small man, wrinkled and bald, but with a big bushy mustache, and wearing a dark green suit—”

  “Is this true?” asked Abby suspiciously.

  “Absolutely. I saw him.”

  “Well, he sounds like an elf, not a real man. It sounds like you made him up.”

  “You’re right, he did look like an elf, but I didn’t make him up. Maybe he was an elf, or a gnome, or a sprite, but I thought he was a real man. Anyway, he had a big book of photographs of noses—just noses, not whole faces—and people who were interested (you’d be amazed how many actually were interested) could pick out a nose and he would very swiftly draw a portrait of them with the new nose. So they could see instantly how they would look if they decided to switch noses. Then he’d hand over a business card of a plastic surgeon—maybe it was his brother; who knows?—and turn to the next person in line.”

  “Then he wasn’t really selling them,” said Carrie.

  “He was a shill for his brother,” Abby said.

  “Because his brother is probably even smaller and uglier than he is,” said Carrie, flying off on the idea for a new story, “and can’t get his own patients, and besides he’s too shy because he was in love with a tall girl once and she made him feel little and insignificant, so now he hides in his operating room doing noses.”

  Sara laughed. “If he really has a brother, I’m sure you’re right.”

  “I want a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer nose!” Doug shouted.

  “Don’t shout,” said Carrie.

  “I like to shout.”

  “I actually like my nose,” said Abby, “but I’d like a Julia Roberts mouth.”

  Doug said, “I want a—”

  “You’ve already said,” shouted Carrie. “It’s my turn!”

  “Don’t shout,” said Doug.

  They laughed, their laughter filling the dining room, so that it was a moment before they heard the doorbell.

  “I’ll get it!” Doug shouted, and dashed through the living room to the foyer. The others waited in silence, hearing nothing. But then Doug was in the doorway, beaming with excitement, a tall figure in the shadows behind him, with a hand on his shoulder. “Sara, look! Look who’s here!”

  “Hi, sis,” said Mack.

  TWO

  He sat at the head of the table, hands folded behind his head, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, telling stories. He had torn through a plate of food, and two refills, and drained a full bottle of wine. Then, sitting back, he had begun to talk, the words spilling out in a torrent, as if no one had paid any attention to him for weeks.

  And maybe no one has, Sara thought. Does anyone in the world care about him?

  Carrie and Abby cared; they could not take their eyes off him. And Doug sat on the arm of Mack’s chair, leaning into him, mesmerized.

  “So finally we said, ‘Well, fuck it, let’s try it, what have we got to lose?’ And guess what—?”

  Abby and Carrie looked at Sara, waiting for sharp words about Mack’s language, but Sara was silent.

  “What?” Doug breathed. “What happened next?”

  “We snuck up on the tiger, had our rifles ready, but, shit, this asshole tourist from Florida shouted something like
‘Watch it, he’s waking up,’ and the fucking tiger—”

  Sara shoved back her chair. “Let’s clear the table.” Furiously, she stacked plates. “Abby. Carrie. Now.”

  “But couldn’t we …I mean—” Carrie was stopped by the grim line of Sara’s mouth. “It’s Doug’s turn,” she said loudly.

  “Not tonight,” Doug cried. “Tonight’s special.”

  “It’s special for all of us,” Carrie retorted.

  “Then let’s all do the dishes.” Mack stood up, smiling broadly at Sara. “It’s only fair: we ate, we clean up. Why should Sara worry about the dishes, when she already has so much on her mind? Come on, I’ll race you to the kitchen.” He grabbed five water glasses, plunging his fingers inside to grip them firmly—Doug watching with his mouth open in amazement—and with his other hand hefted the casserole of veal stew. “Great stew, sis; didn’t Mom and Grandma used to make something like it? Not as good, though, couldn’t have been. This is the best. I guess I ate enough to show it.”

  He was already halfway to the kitchen. The others snatched up plates and knives and forks and dashed after him. Sara heard water running, and loud laughter.

  Slowly, she sat down again and reached for the wine bottle before remembering that Mack had emptied it. She felt angry and resentful, then guilty. What was wrong with her? Her brother had come home after three and a half years, pale, gaunt, hungry, and lonely, needing a family. And he had a family, and some of them had welcomed him with love and joy. But she could not.

  He promised to stay and help me take care of them; he said he’d go to college part-time and I’d be in medical school part-time, and we’d both work and take turns at home. He promised.

  But he was only seventeen years old. He wanted to be free.