I take a deep breath and pounce. “Liberal claptrap from an out-of-touch deep-state lawyer.” I draw the last word out and sigh.
Tanya shakes her head and continues. “The typical household income falls by ten percent at the point of childbirth in the United States and doesn’t fully recover until several months later when parents are back to work. For households headed by single women, the drop is even more drastic: 42 percent at the time of childbirth, with decreases happening in the months prior because of pregnancy-related reductions in hours worked.”
“Small businesses comprise 99.9 percent of all US businesses,” I say, speaking quickly but succinctly. People have the attention spans of gnats. “Small businesses employ nearly 50 percent of the country’s total workforce. It would break these companies to do what you’re asking. Is that better? You’d rather women have no jobs and be on unemployment than be able to take time off to care for their families AND have a job? You liberals amaze me.”
“You’re comparing apples to oranges, Rachel,” Tanya says.
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” I say. “Hopefully, an orange or two will keep the libs at bay. You need to get out of DC on occasion, Tanya. Talk to some real Americans.”
“We’re running short on time, I’m sorry to say.” The camera cuts to Chip. “I’d like to thank my guests today for joining us. Back after the break.”
“Thanks, Tanya,” Dana says to the monitor.
Chip stands up and leaves without acknowledging me. I start to take off my mic, but Tanya says, “How do you live with yourself, Rachel?”
I don’t answer.
“You don’t have children, do you? You don’t know what it’s like to work your way through college holding down two jobs, be the first in your family to earn a degree, walk out thinking you can change the world and be confronted every day by self-loathing women like you who spout hate and whose only interest is in making themselves richer.”
“You don’t know me,” I say.
“Oh, but I do,” Tanya says, looking directly through the monitor at me. “My mother was a hospice nurse, and she used to say nearly every person she cared for at the end of their life was filled with regret. You won’t just be filled with regret, Rachel. You’ll be eaten alive by it.”
Tanya stands and pulls off her mic, and the monitor is empty.
I remove my mic, stand and force a smile at Dana.
“We used to have some great late-night talks, didn’t we?” Dana says.
For the first time, I realize how tired she looks. Dark bags are under her eyes.
“We did,” I say, relieved she’s remembering our years when we were a team.
“What happened to that girl?”
I feel as if I am paralyzed.
“What happened to all those friends you had growing up? The ones who used to check you and keep you down-to-earth, no matter what was going on in your life?”
My breath hitches, and I feel dizzy.
“The press is under siege these days,” she continues, her voice filled with fury. “Women are under siege.” Dana stops and looks at me for the longest time. “And you’re leading the attack with knives disguised as alternative facts.”
“Thank you for having me, Dana,” I say. “Can’t wait until you have me back.”
Dana smiles sadly. “The question is, which side will you be on when you return, Rachel?”
I rush to the green room, grab my bag and a bottle of water and head to the car that is waiting for me outside the studio. “I’ll meet you all in Michigan,” I say to my staff, who will be following me to events later in the week.
“Airport?” the driver asks.
I nod and lean my throbbing head back against the seat, ignoring my buzzing cell. Once on the plane, I order a glass of wine and take an Ambien. In fitful spurts of sleep, I dream that I am Tanya, the opposite of who I am. When I open my eyes, a little girl is staring at me from across the aisle. Her hair is pulled back in a too-tight pony, giving her the look of a sprite.
“What do you do for a living?” she asks. “My dad is an author.” She grabs her father’s arm and gives it a tug. “He’s on tour. People like to listen to what he makes up.”
I nod sleepily. “I’m a magician,” I say. “People like what I make up, too.”
“Coooool,” she says. “I’m going to visit my grandparents on Lake Michigan while my dad tours. My mom has to work.”
“That will be fun.”
“Have you ever been to Lake Michigan?”
I smile and nod. “I grew up in Michigan. When I was a kid, I spent summers at a camp by the lake.”
“Coooool,” she says again. “It’s like summer camp at my grandma and grandpa’s.”
The voice of our flight attendant comes on. “Prepare for landing.”
When the plane lands, the girl waves goodbye, and I get in yet another car that will take me to yet another TV interview and hotel. My cell is buzzing endlessly, my head is screaming, and I pop two aspirin and slam a water, but nothing helps. I try to think of something to calm me. I think of the games I used to play as a kid with my parents when we’d drive up to Camp Birchwood, games like “Slug Bug,” or the “Alphabet Game.”
I see a sign for a U-Pick.
Apples, I think. How ironic.
Buick.
And then I see another sign that screams—even more ironically—CAMP! It’s for a camp in northern Michigan, much like the one I attended as a kid. There are four girls jumping off a dock, arms intertwined, about to splash into the lake. They are screaming, laughing, happy. “Take A Leap Into A Summer Experience That Will Change Your Life!” the billboard says in giant letters beneath the picture.
As the car flies by, I stare into the girls’ faces, and I am jolted back in time.
D, I think. Dad.
I feel sick and shut my eyes.
My phone buzzes and buzzes and buzzes.
“You received this letter,” my assistant says. “Didn’t have a return address. I scanned and emailed it to you. Thought you might want to read. Don’t know if it’s a scam or a letter from someone who hates you...”
“That doesn’t narrow it down,” I say.
My assistant doesn’t laugh. “Oh, and remember, you’re on air at 8:00 p.m. ET. Bye.”
I hang up, open my email and begin to scan the letter, reading faster and faster, the words blurring, my heart racing.
...Let me get to the point, my dear Rach. Just picture me leaning my head over the bunk and telling you my deepest secret.
By the time you receive this, I’ll be dead.
One of my hospice nurses—a mom of six who works nights so she can be at home with her kids before and after school—told me not to die with regret. She said the majority of her patients—no matter their age—are filled with regrets before they die. They regret working too much, not spending more time with their families, not traveling enough, not having more fun, not having more friends. I regret what we all did to each other. You, V and Liz were my best friends and my entire life.
Let me ask you a question: What happens to friendships as we age? What happens to the people we used to be and the people we dreamed of becoming? I guess I was silly to hang on to all those memories, silly to believe that those were the best years of my life. But they were, Rach. They were. I became a different person, a better person, because of you, because of all of you. You made me whole. You made me feel safe, protected, loved. After I lost my brother, you made me feel like I had a family again. I didn’t just save your life, Rach. You saved MINE!
Your life didn’t have to turn out the way it did. We both know why you’re doing what you do. But you have to forgive, Rach, or you, too, will end up filled with regret in the not-too-distant future. I thought of something while I was sick in bed and holding that four-leaf clover I found when we all first met:
like forever, you can’t spell forgiveness without our initials either.
Forgive, Rach. I know it might be the hardest for you to do, but you need your friends again, or you will end up even lonelier than you are now.
My phone trills. My assistant has attached a bunch of photos. I click out of the letter and open one, and a friendship pin stares back at me, a row of green beads hugging our initials as if we were all right beside each other once again.
I open another. It’s the four of us jumping off the dock into the water, just like the photo on the billboard.
And another: a pressed four-leaf clover.
“Pull over,” I suddenly say to the driver. “Please. I feel sick.”
The driver pulls off to the side of the road, and I stumble out of the car and into a ditch filled with clover. I shut my eyes to stop the world from spinning. I think of camp. I think of Tanya’s words this morning. I think of Em. I think of my dad and my mom. I take a deep breath, the Michigan summer air filling my lungs, and then bend over and put my hands on my hips.
The thumping of the car tires as they drive across a nearby overpass are rhythmic, like a song. My heart stops. I know this tune. Because it’s a part of me. A part of me that I forgot a long time ago.
It was the best part of me.
Boom, didi, boom, boom... Booooom.
Liz
PLEASE DON’T TOUCH MRS. ANDERSON’S CLOTHES!
FAMILY WILL DO LAUNDRY AT HOME!
LEAVE THEM IN BASKET FOR DAUGHTER!
THANK YOU!
I stick the marker in my mouth and look over at Mrs. Dickens, who is wearing one of my mother’s purple nightgowns. It is covered in food.
“Hi, Mitheth Dickensth!” I say with a faux chirp despite my irritation, the marker distorting my words.
Mrs. Dickens doesn’t notice. She waves at me. She waves at everyone.
A bird lands on a feeder outside, and Mrs. Dickens turns toward the window and waves at it.
The piece of tape that held up the last sign I made still dangles from the tiny closet that sits across from my mother’s bed. I stick the new one onto the door, open the top drawer to her wobbly cabinet and grab the new gowns I just purchased for her. I yank the marker from my mouth and write ANDERSON in big letters in the back.
My mother begins to cough, and I drop a gown and the marker. I rush to her side, pick up her giant tumbler of water and place the bendable straw in her mouth. My mom sputters and hacks before finally calming. She looks at me, her eyes soften and she lifts her hands—now hard, clenched stones—a few inches off her body and shakes them excitedly.
“Hi, Mom,” I say. “You know me today? Liz? Your daughter?”
Her blue eyes, once as vibrant as a Michigan summer sky and now the color of a faded hydrangea, blink quickly.
“Oh, I love you, too,” I say. I set the water bottle down. “Do you know how much I love you?” I spread my arms. “To the moon and back!” I say, and then rain her head with kisses. My mom smells like a baby.
My mom is a baby again.
She sighs and drifts off. The rag doll she loves to clutch has fallen to the floor, I now notice. I go to the other side of the bed and pick it up. I nestle it into the crook of my mother’s arm.
Mrs. Dickens waves at me as I cross back to the closet.
“Hi, Mrs. Dickens!” I say.
I pick up the dropped gown and marker, and start anew.
Mrs. Dickens was my third-grade teacher here in Holland, the little Dutch town I grew up in and thought I would leave. I never did.
She was the sweetest woman in the world, and the one who taught me how to walk and dance in wooden shoes for the famed spring Tulip Time parade, where kids dress up to celebrate the town’s heritage. Mrs. Dickens, it finally dawns on me, taught all the kids in her class to wave majestically at the crowd while marching.
They’re here to see you, she would tell the class. Wave to welcome them.
I step inside the closet, shut the louvered door and begin to cry. This is my secret hiding spot when I need to release all the emotions that build inside me and then burst. To the world, I am Mount Rushmore; in here, I am Niagara Falls.
I press my face against my mother’s new nightgown and weep. I cannot allow anyone to see me cry. I cannot allow anyone to know that I’m vulnerable. I am now the only remaining link in our family’s chain, the final narrator of our family’s history, the solid patch on my family’s old quilt.
Sometimes, I think I’m the only strong one left in the world. Sometimes, I think I’m the weakest one in the world.
I open the closet door, and the rush of cool air—along with the smell of—what is that today, meatloaf?—fills my nose. I inhale and steady myself.
I fold my mom’s nightgowns and arrange them in her drawer. I swear these have legs, because they walk constantly, no matter how many I buy, no matter how many times I write my mom’s name in them, no matter how many signs I post on the closet door.
My mom used to love purple. It was her signature color. Even the flowers she planted—petunias, tulips, salvia, lavender—had to be purple. When she first moved into Manor Court, I used to embellish my mom’s clothes. I’d add a pretty collar to her sweatshirt, or shiny crystals down the sides of her pants. Now those would rip her tissue-paper skin apart.
I take a seat by my mother’s bed. I open my cell and check my messages. There are a million texts from work as well as my kids and grandkids:
The Olsens want to see the home at 421 Lakeshore Drive at 5:30 p.m. instead of 5. Does that work?
Mom, can you pick up my dry cleaning?
Grandma, would you buy me a new phone?
I don’t answer any of the texts. Instead, I click on my Etsy shop.
VINTAGE GIRL IN A MODERN WORLD
I am a real estate agent, caregiver, mother and grandmother. Only one of those allows for any flexibility. I am the baloney in the sandwich generation. But I still fancy—and always have fancied—myself a designer. I have designed my own clothes forever and am fascinated by the resurgence in the popularity of vintage clothing. Kendall, Kylie and all the Coachella girls wear the things I wore in the ’70s and ’80s. And don’t even get me started about high-waisted jeans and tiny belts. I invented that look.
Not you, V.
“Oh!” I say, looking at my site. I have four new orders. Two people want the knockoff Members Only jackets I’m making.
“Hi, Mrs. Anderson.”
An aide rushes in carrying a tray of food my mother won’t eat.
“Hi, Mrs. Anderson,” she says again to me.
I still have trouble responding to my maiden name after so many years of being married.
“Hi, Tammy.”
The aide pulls my mom’s bed table across her lap and sets the tray down.
Mrs. Dickens waves at her.
“You’re next,” Tammy says.
I watch my mom sleep. She is rail-thin and rarely eats. Often she will knock the spoon from my hand and scream, just like a toddler that hates its first taste of carrots. She is my mother, and she is not my mother. She is dying, and—though it sounds awful and I despise myself for even thinking it—I am not only coming to peace with that but I am also praying the end comes sooner rather than later.
The aide whisks back in and leaves the tray for Mrs. Dickens, who tries to feed herself, dropping half the food on the way to her mouth on the gown I purchased for my mom. I get up and take the spoon from her hand. I feed her, slowly, and Mrs. Dickens coos her happiness. I look out the window, and I have a vivid memory of sitting in her class. As part of her history class, Mrs. Dickens used to have an international food day, when she would cook foods from around the world. Growing up in Michigan, we were pretty much used to meat and potatoes, so many of the children did not react well to tasting cumin, garlic or curry. She would always hold up a spo
on with a tiny bit of a tamale, lasagna, paella or butter chicken and ask us to try it.
What’s the worst thing that could happen? You hate it, she would say. And what’s the best thing? You’ll love it and change the way you eat forever.
To this day, I adore all of those things she made.
I hold up the spoon, and Mrs. Dickens smiles.
I have the urge to run to the closet and weep yet again, but I smile, too, and tell her of my memories.
Mrs. Dickens had a husband who passed, and a daughter who lives in Detroit. She shows up a couple of times a year, with great fanfare, her kids sometimes in tow, and stays for maybe an hour.
“Bye, Mom,” she always says, before looking at me. “I don’t know how you can do it.”
I don’t know how I cannot do it.
I wipe Mrs. Dickens’s mouth when she’s done, move the tray and return to my mom. She is still sound asleep. I pick up her spoon, take a bite of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, and then another.
Stop it, Liz, I tell myself. You don’t need to eat this.
My phone trills again, and I pick up the spoon instead. The potatoes are buttery and salty, the meatloaf rich with ketchup. I finish and start on the chocolate pudding.
“Wow, your mom was a good eater today,” Tammy says when she returns.
I nod.
I planned and planned and planned, but I never planned for any of this: I didn’t plan for my husband to leave me after our kids were grown. I didn’t plan to stay in my little hometown forever. I didn’t plan for my father to die and have my mother fall ill immediately after that tragedy. I didn’t plan to be the caretaker to a family who doesn’t seem to care about me or its history.
Friends offer more support to me and my mom than family. The people she touched randomly at church, in her neighborhood, in the women’s club or volunteering have deeper affection and connection than her own children and grandchildren.
The Clover Girls Page 3
