Mothers and Other Strangers

by Gina Sorell

  The snow was really flying now, and I was thankful that I had only a short drive home. I carefully wound my way away from my mother’s building, past the brick mansions set far back from the sidewalk and lit by old wrought iron lampposts. One of the oldest neighborhoods in Toronto, Rosedale was full of old money, and little about it had changed, with the exception of a few co-op buildings near its entrance. Unlike my mother, most of the tenants of her co-op building had at one time or another resided in the neighboring estates before passing their homes on to their children and opting for a smaller yet still prestigious address. It was the address, and the way people reacted to it when she said it, that attracted my mother. She could have lived in an apartment five times the size for the same money, but then no one would have treated her differently. No one would have assumed that she was one of them. Every day she’d leave the building dressed in her best overcoat, silk scarf and leather handbag slung across her body, her fashionable urban attire a far cry from the bohemian image she projected for her friends from her spiritual group. Like a chameleon, my mother would change her appearance to suit her surroundings, adapting and working her environment to her best advantage. She could play any part, for any audience. The only role she ever seemed incapable of performing was that of mother, to me.

  With her salt-and-pepper hair teased and smoothed into a low knot at the nape of her neck, her piercing eyes framed in gray shadow, and lips stained with a glossy beige lipstick, she’d start out on her forty-minute walk to downtown. My mother didn’t drive. After her car accident she refused to learn. She could fly or take subways and streetcars with no problem. But if she had to get in a car, you could see her anxiety rise and her breathing grow shallow. She’d stare straight ahead, gripping the handle of the door like she was ready to jump out at any moment. And when I’d suggested that maybe if she took lessons and got her license, it would help her get over her fear, she’d snapped that she would never get over a car crashing into her and taking the life of Leo and two other people. She told me that she had felt helpless as a passenger, but she could only imagine what the other driver must have felt, veering into oncoming traffic and knowing that he was moments away from killing everyone.

  Keeping a brisk pace in her Italian leather walking shoes, she would walk through the winding streets nodding and smiling, as women decades younger settled their already-soft bodies into their luxury cars. She loved the fact that she was fitter than women twenty years her junior. She had worshipped her body, and as a result others had done the same, making pilgrimages and bringing gifts along the way.

  “My body is my temple,” she would say.

  Yeah, yours and everyone else’s, I’d think bitterly to myself when the boys I brought home in the hopes of noticing me would notice her instead.

  I crossed onto the bridge and made my way slowly along it. Mine was one of the only cars on the road tonight, proving that everyone but me had taken the storm warning seriously. The windshield wipers were working overtime, and yet I could barely see more than a few inches in front of my car. I just had to make it across the bridge and then I could take side streets. My little Honda was being pushed around by the wind, and I stupidly slammed on the brakes, sending the car spinning. I had forgotten how to drive in these conditions. In Los Angeles, people didn’t even like to go out if it rained; nobody knew how to drive in anything but traffic, and it seemed I was no different. My car swerved as it hit a patch of ice, and I gripped my hands tightly on the wheel and prayed to anyone who was listening not to let me die yet. After all, my mother had just gone and it hardly seemed fair that I should have but a week without her. Someone somewhere obviously agreed, and twenty minutes later I made it back safely.

  The front path was dark, and I tried to remember whether or not I had left the light on. I probably hadn’t—I wasn’t used to it getting dark so early. But then again if I had, it could mean that someone had turned it off and was waiting inside for me. I was being ridiculous—why would anyone be waiting for me? Unless whoever it was that was looking for my mother had come looking for me. My heart started to pound loudly in my chest and I held my breath, trying to walk as quietly as I could. Thankfully the salt that I’d sprinkled on the ground in the morning had long since melted, so there was no crunching beneath my boots. I held my one gloved hand out for balance, willing myself against the wind, determined not to fall, and crept up the front steps. I made it to the door, quietly let myself in, and felt along the wall for the light switch where I knew it to be without even looking. It had once been my house, after all. I snapped the light on and let out a warning yell as I quickly looked around and found nothing. I was alone. I took off my boots, hung my coat in the house’s shared entranceway, and headed upstairs.

  Ted and I had bought the house right after we married. We had spent a long and unemployed winter turning the left side of the duplex into two apartments that we could rent out while we lived in the other half. We rented the first and second floors to a couple of musicians who toured a lot, and the third floor was sort of a guest room/office that we left for ourselves and friends visiting from out of town. When we split up, Ted found directing work back in Toronto and returned to our house. Knowing that I had earned almost no money after we moved to LA, he had offered to buy me out and I had gratefully accepted. My part-time bookkeeping job would never have been enough to live on, but with the sale of my share of the house I was able to stay in our small rent-controlled apartment by the beach, and I had been carefully living off my savings ever since. When my mother died, Ted offered me the attic apartment to stay in while I took care of her affairs. He’d recently bought a house in the suburbs, using the apartment mostly as an office now and as stomping grounds for our cat, who did not get along with Ted’s live-in girlfriend. It was a good deal: I had free lodging for as long as I needed it and in exchange, I’d look after Shadow. He would have offered it no matter what, but I liked to think that I was helping Ted out for a change.

  The attic apartment was the warmest place in the whole house. It was the only place I’d ever stayed in Canada where I wasn’t freezing in the winter. The heat rose to the top and got trapped under the A-frame wood-beamed ceiling. The hardwood floors were only slightly worn, and the light-yellow walls that we had painted to look like sunlight had held up well. It had a bathroom with a big soaker tub and a kitchen that opened up onto the rest of the apartment and boasted top-of-the-line appliances from ten years ago. There was even a tiny balcony off the top, large enough for a chair and a plant, with a ledge just the width of a coffee cup. It was the nicest apartment in the house, and it was definitely an apartment for one.

  “Hello, Shadow.” I scooped the cat up and cradled her in my arms like a baby, her head in the crook of my neck. I buried my face in her fur and closed my eyes, listening to her purr. She was the closest to a child we had ever come, and I’d let Ted have custody. I turned on the stove, heated up some soup for me, some milk for Shadow, and pulled out the two wooden stools at the counter for each of us. Shadow hopped up, cleaned her paws and waited. I grabbed the large manila envelope Vincent had handed me and turned it over. It was packed to capacity, and I ripped off the clear masking tape that held it together. I cleared some space on the counter and emptied out the letters, arranging them into two categories, business and personal.

  The milk was starting to bubble, so I transferred it to the small ceramic bowl that she liked to drink out of and put it in front of her. I opened a bottle of week-old red wine and gave it a whiff. It wasn’t vinegar yet, so I filled a glass, fixed myself a bowl of split pea soup, and sat down next to Shadow. It was nice not to eat alone.

  “Why do I have to open all the mail?” Shadow just ignored me and kept licking her bowl.

  There were a lot of handwritten letters, although as I looked at them closely I realized that not all of these were meant for my mother. Only some of them were addressed to Mrs. Robins. But there were also letters addressed to a Mrs. Robi and a Ms. Rabino. Obviously someone at th
e mailbox store had made a mistake and thrown in the wrong mail. Great. I’d have to trudge out in the snow tomorrow to return someone else’s mail. The very thought of it made me want to collapse. I decided I’d done enough for one day and shoved the letters back into my bag. That’s when I saw it. The letter addressed to Devedra. I stared at the envelope, my hand tightening into a fist and my jaw locking.

  Devedra was my mother’s initiation name, given to her when she joined her secret new-agey group the Seekers. She had always been ahead of trends. She was a vegetarian when everybody else was a carnivore, a follower of homeopathic and natural remedies long before it was popular, and a devotee of yoga when it was still considered the pastime of old Indian men and Sikhs. She had always been drawn to whatever was just beyond the grasp of ordinary people, delighted when she defied conventions and entered worlds where others weren’t brave enough to go. When she became a member of the Seekers, she’d been singled out by the group’s leader and given a new name, Devedra. I remember the first time I heard it. I was fourteen and unpacking groceries that I’d once again paid for with my babysitting money. My mother had a habit of spending her money on everything but the necessities. She had been feeling ill and was lying in her bed giving me orders for where to put things when the phone rang.

  “Hello?” I answered.

  “Yes, may I speak with Devedra please?” The voice was soft and mellow, a slight French accent barely detectable.

  “I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong number,” I said as my mother sniffled and blew her nose loudly.

  “Is this not 416-555-4843?”

  “Yes, but there is no Devedra here, only Rachel, sorry.” I went to hang up the phone but my mother stopped me.

  “Elspeth! Give it to me.” She bounded out of bed, grabbed the phone, and went back into her room and closed the door.

  From the other side of the door I could hear her clear her throat and apologize.

  “I’m so sorry Philippe, the girl didn’t know.”

  The girl. Not my daughter, not Elspeth, but the girl. Just some hired help like she had years ago in Africa.

  I felt Shadow’s paw on my arm and turned to her and smiled. I was sure that cat could read my mind.

  “I’m okay.” I put my hand to my cheek and felt my face flush at the memory. I didn’t know what shocked me more, that my mother had a whole other identity and friends I never knew existed, or that my own existence was a secret to them. I remembered how I had unpacked the rest of the groceries, lingering in the kitchen longer than necessary so that I could listen to the sounds of her muffled laughter on the phone. That night, like so many others, I had waited in my room for her to apologize or explain. But she never did.

  Devedra. Just seeing the name in print made my chest tighten a little. Like a secret handshake or a nickname among sorority sisters, it was meant to convey one thing only—that she was special and I was not. The writing on the front of the envelope was small and precise, as if it had been written by an architect or draftsman, all capitals at exactly the same height. I turned the letter over and ran my fingernail under the piece of tape that held the envelope closed. I pulled the pale-blue paper out, half expecting it to be one of those donation forms for which you tick off the amount you want to give. My mother had always insisted her group wasn’t a religion, it didn’t have tithing, but over the years they had passed a plate that never seemed to fill, no matter how much she gave.

  Our beloved soul sister, the thoughts and prayers of all of your soul family are with you as the strength of your spirit and devotion are tested.

  I crumpled up the paper and threw it on the floor. Sister, family…didn’t they know that I was her real family? Probably not. My mother had always had an easier time with strangers. I used to marvel at how easily she could talk to anyone and how people warmed to her. She could listen patiently for hours, genuinely fascinated with what was going on in their lives, offering advice and sharing her own made-up experiences in an effort to help them. Call me if you ever need someone to talk to, she’d say, writing her number down, and they would. But when it came to me, she acted more and more as if she belonged to some secret club that I was privileged to even know about. Whatever I knew about her life was an honor she afforded me rather than a right. Never mind that she was my mother, and that to most that would mean she had a responsibility to me. It felt like she saw it the other way around, as if my being born had been a huge burden to her, and my life’s mission was to somehow repay this debt.

  I grabbed my glass of wine and drank half of it in one easy gulp. It burned going down, and the ache in my throat was comforting. I slumped over the counter, put my head on my arm, and nudged the rest of my pea soup toward Shadow. I was still hungry but I was too tired to eat, and I polished off the wine instead. Shadow stared at the soup, swishing me with her tail.

  “Finish it, I’m done.”

  I dragged my body across the attic to my bed and flung myself down. I was so bone-tired that just inhaling seemed to hurt. I’d do the dishes in a few minutes; I just needed a nap first. It was only 7:30 p.m., but it felt like midnight, and outside the snow whipped against the dark sky and rattled the windows. Shadow finished my soup and sat in the old recliner opposite my bed. The heat coming off the radiator wafted over me, wrapping me in a blanket of warmth and pulling me deep into a fiery sleep.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The dreams always end in fire. Snapshots of memory mixed in with sleep, they lure me in like an old home movie, bringing me along on a ride that starts familiar and true and ends foreign. It had been decades since I’d had them. As a young girl after we moved to Canada, I would awaken from them in the middle of the night calling out for Lafina, my beloved nanny we left behind, her name caught in my throat between sobs. My mother said it was because I missed her.

  She told me that the fire represented change, and that once I embraced my new surroundings, the dreams would stop. And when they didn’t stop, she warned me that dwelling on bad things made them happen. That did it. From then on, I went to bed every night determined to dream of something else, and eventually I did. But ever since my mother’s death, the dreams had returned, stronger and stranger than ever.

  In the dreams I see myself as a small child, no more than five years old and sitting under a tree with Lafina. The tree is an enormous, leafy, green umbrella that stands tall, shading me from the sun and cradling me up onto its lap full of roots that break through the dry ground. The sun is bright, and the heat moves in waves across the earth. I am chatting away, scooping out bread from the center of the fresh loaf that Lafina has baked. I pass the loaf to Lafina and she does the same, all the while nodding, her face serious as she listens to me. Lafina was a tall, strong, wide woman to whom my complete care had been entrusted. Not yet in school, I spent my days alongside her, keeping her company as she did the washing and cleaning for my parents. When I got too tired to follow her, she’d hoist me into a sling on her back, and I would hang there with my head on her shoulder napping in the afternoon heat as she hung the washing on the clothesline. Sometimes, even though we weren’t supposed to, we’d eat lunch out back by her living quarters with the gardener and the houseboy. They all came from the same township, and every week they’d go home and spend Sundays with their own families. But from Monday to Saturday, Lafina would insist that she and the rest of the help were each others’ family, and then she’d squish my cheeks and say that meant me, too, and I would crawl up onto her to listen while they gossiped and swapped stories. And each afternoon before Howard returned home from work, before my dinner and my bath, Lafina and I would sit under a tree, eat our freshly baked loaf of bread, and talk. I don’t remember what we talked about because I was so young, but I remember feeling safe and happy.

  We are both staring straight ahead at my family’s house off in the distance, and then a car pulls into the driveway, the sky turns dark, and Howard and my mother get out of the car. I feel like something bad is going to happen, like I am waiting for
it to happen, and there’s nothing I can do.

  Lafina runs her big hand over my curls and pats my back in a soothing circular motion. “Come on now, get your shoes.”

  I go to look for my shoes from behind the tree where I thought I left them, but they’re not there. Lafina wipes my face with her skirt, arranges my wild hair into two little bunches on either side of my head, and smoothes down my dress. She leans down and kisses me on the forehead, and I reach for her, but she is gone, and then the sound of an explosion thunders out, sending me to the ground. Lafina runs out of the house covered in flames, screaming my name. I try to move, but I can’t.

  Once again, I was awakened by the sound of a scream caught in my throat. Soaking wet, with rivers of sweat running down my back and chest, my clothes stuck to my body, I covered my face with my hands and took deep, slow breaths. Shadow meowed and hissed at the window next to my bed.

  “It’s okay, Shadow, she’s gone now, she’s gone.” I peeled off my shirt and tried to mop myself dry. My skin felt hot to the touch, and I was surprised to find it wasn’t actually burnt. I couldn’t stop sweating and decided to take a cool shower as Shadow stood guard by the door. I had heard cats were once considered protectors and used to guard the tombs of pharaohs. After what happened in my mother’s apartment, I was grateful Shadow had taken up my farless-glamorous cause. The water felt cool against my skin, and although it was just in my head, I washed my hair to rid it of the smell of smoke that was trapped inside my nostrils. I don’t know how, but I knew that these dreams that end in fire are not just about my mother, but because of her.