The Real Mother

by Judith Michael

There was a pause. Mack gave a small, chagrined laugh. “I exaggerated. God, I forgot you have this fantastic memory; I always envied you for it, did you know that? Anyway, I’m sorry; I exaggerated. I’ve forgotten more than what a great memory you have, and it’s sad and embarrassing, and I wanted you to think I remembered everything. I wanted to impress you with how much I belonged. The sad truth is that I really do feel strangely like a stranger in a strange house, and I was afraid if you knew it, you’d think I hadn’t missed you and you wouldn’t want me here, and, damn it, Sara, I want to be here.”

  The tears were back and he stood up abruptly. “I hate to cry in front of people. I’m going to shower and shave or you really won’t want me around. I’ll see you later. How about I take you out to lunch?”

  He bent down and kissed the top of her head and then left, swiftly and silently on his bare feet.

  Sara sat still, listening to sounds from the third floor of drawers opening and closing, of the toilet and then the shower, so clearly that she knew he had not closed either his bedroom or his bathroom door. Strange, she thought, but maybe he’s used to living alone.

  His words hung in the room. I want to be here. Said with a kind of desperation. As if he had fled here. From what? Strange streets, loneliness…and what else?

  Or, as if he had to be here, had to have a place to stay, a family, respectability, while he… what?

  She had no way of knowing. No clues, no obvious connections between the gaunt man who had sat here, crying, and the boy who had vanished.

  She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe in him, to like him, even to love him. She wanted to welcome him as her brother.

  Well, I will, she thought. I guess I owe him that. And it’s good for Abby and Carrie and Doug to have a solution to the mystery of what happened to Mack; it may even be good for them to have an older brother. And he did agree when I said we’d go to school and work. I said we’d do all the things we wanted to do, and he said we would. He said we’d work it out. It will just take some time, I guess, but I’ve waited this long—

  I don’t want to wait any longer.

  She shrugged. How often had she told the three children that wanting something did not automatically and magically make it happen?

  Her telephone rang and she answered it absently. “Sara,” Donna Soldana said, “Pussy Corcoran—is that really her name? Anyway, she called, she wants you to call her back. And Reuben Lister called, left his cell-phone number. And a few others—” She read them and Sara jotted them down.

  “Why are you in the office on Saturday?” she asked.

  “I had a lot to do; I’m just working another hour or two. I thought I might as well give you these. Do you mind?”

  Sara gazed at the list. “No, it’s fine. Do you have someone to take you home?”

  “Sara, it’s the middle of the day. He won’t try anything. Even if he does, there are people all over the place. I’ll be okay.”

  “If you’re worried, I’ll come down and drive you home.”

  “I’m not worried. Really. What happened last week was crazy; he’s never done that before. I mean, coming after me in a shopping mall… it was just crazy. And he left when I said I’d call the security guard; it wasn’t a big deal.”

  “I’d feel better if you were with someone.”

  “Thanks, but you shouldn’t worry. Anyway, I can’t have a keeper every minute of every day. I’ll deal with it, Sara, I have to.”

  “I know.” And she does, Sara thought. We all have to deal with whatever comes our way, because in the end we can’t count on anyone being next to us, as Donna says, every minute of every day. “Will you call me when you get home?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  Sara laughed. “You probably don’t need another mother. I apologize.”

  “It’s okay. I like it, actually. And I’ll try to call.”

  “One more thing,” Sara said. “Reuben Lister’s cell-phone number.”

  When she hung up, she read down the list of calls. Pussy Corcoran could wait until Monday; the others could wait until Monday. All but one. She reached for the telephone and called Reuben Lister.

  “Good morning,” he said. “I was expecting to return to New York today, but it will be tomorrow instead. Would you have dinner with me tonight?”

  Sara smiled to herself. A man of few words and direct action.

  “I’d like that,” she said.

  “If you’ll give me your address, I’ll take a cab—”

  “No, there’s no need. I’ll pick you up at your hotel and we can drive from there.”

  “Thank you, but I can walk. On the chance that you’d be free, I made a reservation at Spiaggia. They only had six-thirty; earlier than I wanted, but Saturday night is difficult. Is it all right with you?”

  “Yes. I’ll meet you there.”

  “And can you tell me where the Museum of Contemporary Art is? At the moment, I’m coming up to the Water Tower.”

  “One block east, on Chicago Avenue.”

  “How satisfactorily close everything is. Until tonight, then.”

  More like a business discussion than making a date for dinner. Sara began to laugh. A strange conversation, but somehow comforting. Two people who didn’t play games, but got right to the point.

  Except that of course they would play games, she reflected as she turned back to her work. People always did, at least until they began to know each other.

  And maybe it never ends, she added, thinking of Mack.

  Showered, shaved, dressed, and cheerful, Mack stood in her office door. “Time for lunch. A date with my sis.”

  They walked to the restaurant, a long walk with Sara setting the pace and Mack, breathing hard, half a step behind, all the way to Rush Street. “Do you always walk like that?” he gasped as they were shown to an outside table. “Or was that for my benefit?”

  “I always walk like that. I don’t have much time for exercise.”

  Seated, no longer breathless, Mack began to talk, and Sara relaxed. They talked of changes in Chicago and the university neighborhood around their house, friends Mack remembered, and Sara’s job. “I’m pretty sure they’ll let me work part-time when I go back to school,” she said once, but then the talk turned to something else, and from there to another topic, and on to a dozen more. It was all light, pleasant, and inconsequential, Sara thought as they left the restaurant. But she had enjoyed herself, and enjoyed Mack’s company.

  On the way home, she said, “I’ll be out tonight; Abby will stay with Carrie and Doug.”

  “Golly, another date, sis? Two in one day; not bad!”

  She looked at him and did not reply.

  “Ouch,” he said. He put his arm around her. “Hey, it’s fine with me if you have a hot date; better than lunch with your bro any day, and what good is getting up in the morning if you don’t have something hot to look forward to later on?” Sara walked faster, and he struggled to catch up. “In fact,” he said between short breaths, “a hot date might warm you up. What’s with you, sis? Are you always such a fucking icicle— sorry, you don’t like that awful word—are you always an icicle, or is it just me?”

  Sara walked faster, leaving him behind. Let him find his own way home. He made her feel prim and rigid. An icicle. And mean. No one else made her feel that way.

  Except the Corcorans, she thought, and then she smiled. What a social evening that would be: Mack and the Corcorans. I’ll have to get them together.

  By the time she got home, she had lost her anger and was exhilarated by the fast walk, by her strong, steady heartbeat and sense of wellbeing. She loved Chicago’s cloudy days when the light lay like a pale mist on the new leaves and bursts of daffodils and tulips that brought the earth to life each spring; she loved breathing deeply the fresh moist air hinting of rain; she loved the scent of damp earth and new-mown grass and the perfume of lilacs blooming in bouquets of bushes in the front yards of houses solid and protective, like her own. There was so much love insid
e Sara Elliott that often she did not know how to contain it.

  Not prim, she thought. Not rigid or icy. Not mean.

  Just waiting.

  “I have plans to go out tonight,” she said later, when they all were in the sunroom. She and Abby were watering the plants, Doug was carving a bar of soap into a horse, and Carrie was deep in her book. “Abby, if you want to have a friend over, it’s fine.”

  “But—” Abby stared at her in dismay. “I can’t be home tonight. There’s a party for the cast and crew, and I have to be there!”

  “You never mentioned it,” said Sara. “You told me you’d be home all weekend.”

  “I know, but then we all decided, this morning, it’s sort of impromptu? Everybody wanted a party—it’s for everybody, the cast and the crew, everybody—at Mr. Barker’s? The director? The head of the drama club? You met him at conferences in February. I mean, it’s at his house, it’s not like we’re going out carousing. Sara, everybody’s going to be there. And I’m the star; I have to be there.”

  Sara nodded. Of course she had to be there. And Carrie had an early babysitting job next door. And on a Saturday night, there was no way to find anyone else. “What time will you be home tonight?” Sara asked Carrie, who had looked up from her book to listen.

  “They said six-thirty to nine-thirty. Maybe earlier, but they weren’t sure. But the kids will be fed, so I’ll have dinner here first.”

  “Okay,” said Sara, giving up. “You can go to your party, Abby; I’ll stay home.”

  Mack, coming in, said, “You told me you had a date.”

  “A date?” Abby cried.

  “A dinner engagement,” Sara said.

  “Abby’s going out,” Doug said to Mack, “and Carrie’s babysitting and Sara doesn’t trust me to be alone so she’s staying home. Of course I could be by myself, all night, even, but everybody thinks I’m a baby.”

  “What the hell, Sara,” Mack said. “You are fucking not going to—” He looked at Doug and Carrie, then at Abby. “Shit, I keep forgetting—” He struck his forehead with the side of his fist. “Christ, there’s no way I—” He groaned. “Sorry, sis. Christ, I might have to stop talking. Shit,” he muttered. “Listen, sis, you are not going to stay home… what the hell, I’m here! I’ll stay with the gang…well, gang minus Abby and Carrie…and we’ll have a terrific time. I can even cook, you know? Not anything like my big sister, but I can throw together a bunch of goodies and call it dinner. We’ll have a great time… right, gang?”

  Doug threw his arms around Sara. “Please let Mack take care of me, Sara. That’s what big brothers are for. Please, please, please! I’ll be very good!”

  Sara smiled. “You are very good.”

  “And I’ll be home by nine-thirty,” Carrie said gravely, “so I could help Mack. Please say yes, Sara. Please.”

  Sara wondered why she was reluctant. Because I don’t know what to think about him, and when I don’t know, how can I decide anything?

  “I won’t hurt them,” Mack said quietly, and Sara suddenly felt ashamed.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll be at Spiaggia—”

  “Hurray, hurray!” Doug shouted, and threw his arms around Sara again.

  Over the top of Doug’s head, she met Mack’s eyes, and for a moment it seemed as if, finally, there were indeed two adults in the house. “—and I’ll have my cell phone if you need me. Carrie and Doug can tell you where everything is; there’s enough veal stew left, and Carrie makes an excellent salad. Bread in the freezer, and—”

  “Hey, we’re cool,” Mack said with a grin. “Cool and cooled off and coorious to see how well we coo together. Shouldn’t you be getting ready?”

  Carrie and Doug were giggling. Sara nodded, feeling stingy because they were excited and she was doubtful. “I’ll be down in a little while,” she said.

  When she reappeared, they had heated everything in the microwave and were sitting down to a perfectly set table in the breakfast room. Carrie had even lit candles, Sara noted. It looked very festive. Mack looked up and said, “Wow,” and Carrie and Doug said, “Wow,” in a disquieting echo. Then, in unison, and well rehearsed, they all sang, “Bye, Sara; have a good time.”

  She smiled. “A chorus in our house. Thank you. I won’t be late.” She heard the words come out almost as a warning, but it was too late to take them back. She hesitated, but there really was nothing more to say. She blew a kiss, and saw them sit down as she turned toward the back door. “Okay, let’s all hold hands,” Mack said.

  “What for?” Doug asked. “How do we eat if we’re holding hands?”

  “Have to thank God for our food.” Sara froze in the doorway to the backyard. Thank God for our food? Since when—?

  “Thank you, God, for this good food,” said Mack, “which was cooked by big sister Sara and will soon be devoured devotedly by three devoted people who thank her very much. Okay, now we eat.”

  Stunned, Sara walked through the backyard to the garage, and sat in the car for a moment before backing out. And all the way down Lake Shore Drive and into another garage in a skyscraper of offices and apartments, she tried to put together the pieces she knew of Mack Hayden, tried so intently that Reuben Lister, seeing her emerge from the elevator on the second floor, was struck by her absorption in her thoughts. “Is everything all right?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She smiled. “I must have looked as if I were trying to solve all the problems of the city.”

  “Of America. Maybe the world.” He returned her smile, appreciating how attractive she was. Not beautiful, he thought, but her eyes were wonderful, dark blue flecked with hazel, widely spaced beneath level brows and slightly upturned at the corners, which gave her a mischievous look when she smiled. Her hair was a dark tawny gold, cut short to frame her face, and her cheekbones and the line of her jaw were decisive. She wore black, a simple dress that fit her closely (well built, he noted with a judgmental eye; slender but not exercised to scrawniness), with a V-neck, long sleeves, and a long slit skirt. Gold earrings and a gold necklace with some kind of ancient coin were her only adornments. No wedding ring; no rings of any kind. She looked about thirty or thirty-one, and carried herself with the poise of a woman who knew that everything attractive about her was enhanced by simplicity. Reuben knew almost nothing about her, but her gaze was direct, she seemed strong and confident, and he liked what he saw. “Can the problems be put aside long enough to eat?”

  Sara laughed. “They won’t even lurk in the background. Have you been waiting long?”

  “Two minutes.” They walked through the corridor to the restaurant and were led down a few steps to a table beside the wall of windows overlooking Michigan Avenue and the lake.

  Sara raised her eyebrows. “How did you get this table with such short notice?”

  “A lucky cancellation. I have good success with restaurants, maybe because my father owned a bakery. Though I fear that sounds like a non sequitur.”

  “It does.” They smiled. “Where was the bakery?”

  “Brooklyn. It still is. Actually, there are three: Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan, in the Village, all called Lister and Sons, based on my father’s firm conviction that my brothers and I would take over when he retired. All of us worked there for years, my mother as well, but only my youngest brother stayed to run it. My father still pops in unannounced to make sure everything tastes the way it should, and to take dessert home to my mother.”

  “Your mother doesn’t go with him for the tastings?”

  “She doesn’t go out. She had a stroke some years ago, and stays home and plays Scrabble with her friends and writes outraged letters to various people in the government, beginning with the president.”

  “How wonderful for her to be able to do that.”

  He heard the wistful note in her voice. “Your mother can’t, or won’t—?”

  “She also had a stroke, but she’s paralyzed on one side and can’t speak. She’s in a nursing home and friends do visit, but they’re unc
omfortable, trying to fill the silence, and when they do talk she isn’t really interested in their monologues about lives she can’t share.”

  “And your father?”

  “He died when I was three.”

  “So you’re alone now?”

  She laughed. “Hardly. I have a brother and two sisters.” She paused, and he saw her consider how much detail to provide. To give her privacy, he conferred with the sommelier on wine, then turned to contemplate Michigan Avenue below them, its hazy streetlights softened by the mist that lingered after the early-evening rain. The sidewalks and streets, still wet, reflected the lights and the bright mannequined windows with crowds streaming past, some still hidden beneath umbrellas, others lifting their faces to the newly washed air, strolling, talking animatedly on cell phones, window-shopping, signaling for taxis, or rushing to catch an oncoming bus. Far off, in the gathering darkness of Lake Michigan, the lights of a city cruise ship shone like a beacon.

  Reuben turned back as Sara said, with a small smile, “We’ve got a peculiar history. I’m sure it isn’t unique—a writer once said that every happy family is alike but every unhappy family—”

  “—is unhappy in its own way,” Reuben finished. “Tolstoy.”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t really apply, because we’re not unhappy. A few years after my father died, my mother remarried, and my brothers and sisters were born—”

  “Brothers?”

  She hesitated. “I did say I had one brother. In fact, I have two brothers and two sisters.”

  As she paused again, Reuben said, “And your stepfather?”

  “He was an engineer, director of quality control for an electronics company for ten years, but when it was sold, he was let go. He looked for work for a while, about a year, I think, and then, one day, just…left. We never heard from him again.”

  “Your mother had no idea where he went?”

  “He’d said he would write when he found a job. When he didn’t, my mother hired a detective, who found nothing. Four months later, my brother Mack left. It was his seventeenth birthday, and one morning he…was gone.” She laughed slightly. “I worry about Doug. He’s ten. He doesn’t have the best role models.”