Mothers and Other Strangers

by Gina Sorell

  My skin was flushed and my cheeks were starting to burn. I needed to get outside as quickly as possible or I might scream. “Thanks for the dinner and sorry about yesterday.” I grabbed my coat and headed for the door. “I think I know what they were looking for, but they didn’t get it.”

  “No they didn’t.”

  I stopped walking and turned to face her. “Excuse me?”

  “Please. Wait here.”

  My body went rigid and my feet felt glued to the floor. I watched as Mrs. David went down the hall and returned with a wooden box.

  “She asked me to keep this safe for her.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t know what I was keeping it safe from, until yesterday. I needed to be sure.”

  I took the box and held it in my hands. The size of a shoebox, wooden and carved with little jewel-like pieces of colored glass inlaid into a flower design, it was heavier than it looked. There was a big brass latch on the outside, but no key.

  “I don’t know what’s in there. I think that’s for you to find out.”

  I nodded and my eyes filled with tears. “Thank you.”

  “And this is also for you. I took it of your mother during her last days, before the pain. She was really beautiful. This might help you to remember that.” She placed a brown envelope in my hand. My mouth opened, but nothing came out. It was too much, and with tears streaming down my face, I turned and left.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I needed to see Ted. It was late, but I knew where I could find him. He was on night shoots at a studio by the lakeshore all week. He had left behind a note with his production schedule for me at the apartment. It was his way of letting me know where he was if I needed him. Nothing pushy, no invitation to get together—he’d let me decide when I was ready. The same way he let me decide when our marriage was over, even though he hadn’t wanted the divorce. I drove past the empty security booth, parked on the lot, and ran toward the buildings ahead. I suddenly felt foolish. Where was I running to? There were so many soundstages, and I didn’t know which one he was on. I looked around for his car and then realized that I had no idea what he drove anymore. Maybe if I looked inside the cars, I’d recognize something of his, but it was dark in the lot and freezing, and I couldn’t just go around peering into every car. I started to cry. I didn’t know what to do, I just knew that I needed to talk to him. I needed somebody who had known us both to tell me I wasn’t crazy, that the woman I had been hearing about all day wasn’t the same woman he had met.

  “Excuse me ma’am, can I help you?” A young man in a security uniform walked toward me.

  “I’m looking for Ted Brennan,” I said, wiping the tears from my face.

  “Is he expecting you?”

  “No, but I have to see him.”

  “This is private property, you can’t just wander around.”

  “I’m his wife. Ex-wife.”

  He looked me over, taking in my tear-stained face and disheveled hair. “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”

  “No, I need to talk to him.”

  “Ma’am, you have to leave now,” he said, reaching for my arm. I moved out of his way and started to walk back to my car when I heard another voice through his walkie-talkie.

  “Everything okay out there?”

  “Someone here looking for Ted.”

  I looked back at the security guard, and pleaded. “Please, can you just tell him that Elsie is here. Please. It’s urgent.”

  He took a deep breath and sighed. “Somebody find Ted. I need to ask him something.”

  I waited on a small leather couch in Ted’s office. A piece of paper with his name and the title Director was taped to the door. The office itself was nothing more than some plain drywall and a concrete floor, a place where a film could set up shop for a few months and then move out for the next production, but still, it felt like Ted.

  I recognized the vintage steel tanker desk that we had bought together in LA to celebrate his very first directing job, an indie film that paid him little more than the cost of the desk, and the basketball hoop that he always hung on the back of a door. Stacks of entertainment and political magazines sat next to a tower of moleskin notebooks, an old steel lamp, and his favorite mug that read Yes! But first coffee. Even the beat-up couch with its old Hudson Bay blanket felt like him, and I thought of all the times I’d curled up under it while I helped him work on a script.

  “Elsie, are you all right?” asked Ted, rushing into the room.

  “Sorry to bother you, I just.…” I looked at the security guard who’d been watching over me, like I was some criminal.

  “It’s okay Bill, I got it, thanks,” he said, walking him out and closing the door.

  It had been three years since we broke up, and two since I’d last seen him.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated.

  “Don’t apologize. Else, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  I took him in. His shoulders were a little rounder now, but he still looked like the kind of guy who climbed mountains and sailed boats and wore Irish cable-knit sweaters. He was a city boy who looked and moved like a country boy—calm, measured, confident. And even though he was one of the hardest-working people I had ever met, he gave off the appearance of the regular, easygoing guy next door. It was why they’d loved him in Los Angeles as an actor. He never seemed like he cared what anyone thought of him, and in many ways he didn’t. “Not everyone has to like me,” he’d say, and so naturally they did.

  “Me. I was wrong. I never knew her. I had no fucking idea.” I was crying again and having trouble catching my breath.

  “I know. I know.” He sat next to me, close enough that I could touch him, but far enough away that I didn’t have to.

  “No, I don’t just mean we weren’t close. I mean she had a whole other secret life.…”

  “She always did, Elsie.”

  “Not just the Seekers, Ted. Aliases. Credit cards in fake names that she racked up, and jewelry that she was selling off in order to get by. And she has this ivory and diamond ring that I think the Seekers are looking for. She was broke and owed money, and I never knew. I always thought she was fine. I thought that she just didn’t want to share her life with me, but I think she was hiding something.”

  “Slow down. What do you mean?”

  “She had a box, a secret box. And I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I can open it.”

  “It’s okay, Else, it’s okay,” he said, turning to look at me. He ran his hand through his hair and exhaled deeply. “I am right here.” He opened his hand toward me, like he had so many times. And that did it, the floodgates opened.

  I met Ted at a fundraiser for my dance company. It had been a variety night and Ted was a last-minute fill-in for a missing actor in his friend’s sketch-comedy troupe. He didn’t know the lines and was terrible, but the audience liked him anyway. He was great looking, extremely charismatic, and a good sport about being the butt of the other performers’ jokes. At the open bar afterward, he introduced himself and assured me he wasn’t nearly as bad an actor as I had just witnessed, and if I agreed to go for a drink with him, he promised to never perform at a fundraiser of mine again. He was handsome and confident, worked steadily in film and television, and certainly didn’t lack for admirers, judging by the women who had gathered around him after his performance. I, on the other hand, was really only comfortable around other dancers, people with whom I had a common wordless vocabulary. But when I tried to decline, he smiled and said, “It’s only drinks, Elsie. I know better than to ask a dancer out to eat.” I was shocked and, after laughing, agreed.

  He was so sure, so steady, and I loved spending time with him. He made me feel secure and smart and interesting. He made me feel beautiful. Not plain in comparison to my mother, or beautiful in my own way, which I had gradually allowed myself to believe I was, but really beautiful. And when he said that he’d rather spend time with me than anyone else, I believed him. I h
ad never been anyone’s first choice before, and when he asked me to move in with him after only a few months of dating, I said yes. For the first time I felt what it was like to share my life with someone. After a long day of rehearsals, Ted would pour me a glass of wine, run me a bath, and sit on the tile floor next to the tub while I recounted stories about my day. When I was sick, he’d make me soup and bundle me in bed, and together we’d watch movies until I fell asleep. I read scripts with him, helped him memorize lines for auditions, and programmed the timer on the coffeemaker so he always had coffee when he got up, even if I was still in bed. I finally knew what it was like to love fully and be loved back. I didn’t have to wonder or ask, I didn’t have to find ways to earn his love; it was simply there, day in and day out, as steady as the sunrise, and for a long time he filled all the unfinished spaces that had been left in me. When I was forced to stop dancing, when I was unable to find work as a choreographer, when I fell into a depression so deep I couldn’t get out of bed for months, he had been there.

  My depression had crept up on me in the eighteen months that my career as a professional dancer was quietly ending. Or maybe I had just ignored the signs until it was too late. My mother used to refer to it as one of my “moods,” a pervasive funk that would seep into my flesh and greet me upon waking. I’d lie in bed and open my eyes, and the very act of being awake would tire me out so much that I’d want to roll over and fall back asleep. When I was younger, I’d tell myself that I was just worn out from dance rehearsal, and schoolwork, and from living with a mother who was exhausting to be around, even on a good day. I’d drink more coffee, dance harder, and keep my body so busy that my brain didn’t have time to think about the dark shadows that were creeping around its edges. For a long time after I moved in with Ted, the sadness stopped, and I allowed myself to believe that our love for each other had cured it. But eventually the sadness returned, quietly at first and then louder and louder. It got worse when age and injuries stopped me from dancing. Without being in constant motion, my mind demanded I take notice of it, holding me hostage in my stillness.

  Ted was the one who told me that I needed to pay attention to it, needed to deal with it, and after pleading with me to try to fix it, I agreed to see a therapist. For a long time, getting to the root of the problem only made me feel worse. I had too many loose threads, and it was dangerous to pull at them. But Ted was patient; he insisted that we could fix me, and I wanted him to be right. I wanted the happiness that we’d had when we first moved in together to return, so when he suggested that maybe a child of my own to love would make me feel complete, I agreed.

  I loved the idea that I could rewrite my history with my mother by having a child of my own. Because I had no role model for what actually makes a good parent, I worried about whether I’d be qualified. Ted would say that I’d already proved I could be a great mother—I had raised myself. I began to let myself daydream about what our child might look like and all the things we would do together as a family. I’d notice pregnant women on the street and look at them longingly, eager for the day when I’d be one of them. Getting pregnant became our purpose. It was my entire focus for years, and when it turned out I’d never be able to give Ted the children he’d always wanted, he still stayed. He told me he would always love me, no matter what happened. But it was clear that what he hoped would happen was a baby. That we would find a way, that one day we would be parents. I tried not to blame him for wanting more for us—I saw how much it would hurt him to give up that hope. Instead, I felt guilty, told myself that I didn’t deserve his love, that I was too much work and too great a disappointment.

  So I ended it. Unable to watch Ted struggle through a life that my depression and barren womb had made miserable for both of us, I demanded a divorce, and always one to give me what I wanted, he agreed. I wasn’t being a martyr, I was being selfish. Seeing my failures reflected back at me in his eyes was too much. He always tried to be positive and reassure me that things were going to be okay, that we were going to be okay, but we weren’t. My sadness was exhausting, and soon it would have sunk us both. I wanted to save him, sure, but I also wanted to save myself; it was too hard to be depressed and racked with guilt. If I didn’t have to see what my depression was capable of doing, I could ignore it and pretend it wasn’t as bad as it was.

  There was a knock on the door, and then a production assistant opened it and looked in.

  “Ted, they’re almost done with the next setup—we’ll be back in ten.”

  “Got it. Close the door.” He stood and waved off the assistant, who did as asked.

  “Shit. I’m sorry. I am not your problem anymore, Ted. I shouldn’t do this.” I wiped my face and stood to go. “You’ve got Julie to worry about now.”

  “Julie doesn’t make me worry.” I laughed in spite of myself, and Ted laughed along with me. “I take it you’re still not dating?”

  “What gave it away?” I watched as a smile spread across his face and tucked my hands deep into my pockets to stop myself from grabbing him.

  “Come on, thirteen years together. That means something, no?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So why don’t you sit back down and start from the beginning and tell me about Pandora and her box. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I told him everything that I knew, as quickly as I could, and when I was done he waited a few moments before speaking.

  “Some inheritance.”

  My mother had always been a sore spot between us. Ted was the one guy she hadn’t been able to win over with her charms. I remember the first time they met. My mother was leaving town for six months and had called on the pretext of letting me know and having me keep an eye on her apartment while she was gone. She’d gone away lots of times in the past and never felt the need to call before. It wasn’t like we’d been keeping in touch. With the exception of the obligatory birthday calls and the odd guilt-induced visit, I’d managed to successfully avoid her for months at a time. But that was before I had my picture in the paper and a glowing review for the opening night of my dance company’s new season. Before Ted, now a recognizable actor on a well-known TV show, was quoted as saying that as far as he was concerned, his girlfriend’s company was the best new dance company in Toronto, and yes he was biased.

  We had celebrated the end of my company’s opening weekend with a bottle of champagne, a midnight feast of Chinese takeout, and a night of lovemaking that lasted well into the morning.

  “That was some celebration,” he said. He rolled over toward me in bed, scooped me in his arms, and pulled me against him.

  “You’re welcome,” I said, making him laugh.

  He nuzzled his head in my hair and I grabbed his hands, squeezed them to my chest, and smiled. It felt good to be wrapped up in Ted, cocooned in his naked body and shielded from everything around us. The warm September sun was streaming in through the open windows, and outside, the little bird feeder that he had built was full of sparrows yammering away.

  “I don’t know whether to kiss you or spank you for building that bloody feeder. God they’re noisy.”

  “Spank please,” said Ted, propping himself up on his elbow and fanning my long hair out against the pillow.

  “I’m serious. I mean it’s nice and all, but not first thing in the morning.”

  He turned over the little alarm clock that we had accidentally knocked on the floor. “I hate to tell you Else, but it isn’t first thing in the morning.”

  It was already noon.

  “Noon! Time for mimosas,” said Ted, hopping out of bed and crossing the apartment to the kitchen.

  “Isn’t it a little early to be drinking?” I squinted against the light, my head fuzzy from the night before.

  “It has orange juice, so it’s civilized,” he said in a bad British accent, returning with a glass for each of us. “Besides, it’s not every day that my girlfriend gets a five-star review in the paper. Shall we read it again?” He tucked back into bed next to me a
nd grabbed the paper.

  “No, don’t, too much praise will go to my head. I’ll get conceited.” It was something my mother would have said to me, and I recognized it the second it came out of my mouth.

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Ted, laughing.

  I swatted his arm and grabbed the newspaper, my heart skipping a beat over words like daring, breathtaking, and original. “I still can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it. Are you going to tell your mom?”

  “I’m not sure she’d care.” I hadn’t told him the whole story about my mother. In fact I’d said as little as possible about her. He knew we weren’t very close and that I’d grown up thinking that my mother would rather have been anywhere else than with me. Having amazing parents himself, Ted was sure I was exaggerating.

  “Oh come on, my mother would buy a hundred copies of the paper and mail it to all her friends if this was about me.”

  “That’s your mother,” I said, taking our champagne glasses and putting them on the floor next to the bed. “I don’t want this weekend to end.”

  “It doesn’t have to,” he said, climbing on top of me, when the phone rang.

  “Don’t answer it,” I said, wrapping my legs around him.

  We waited for the phone to stop ringing, and when it didn’t, Ted yelled out in frustration, “And this is why we should have gotten an answering machine!” He sighed, picking up the receiver. “Hello?”

  He turned to me and made a face, as if to say he had no idea who it was, and mouthed the word coffee to me, not really paying attention to the other voice on the line.

  “May I ask who is calling? Rachel? Oh, Elsie’s mother.” He sat up straight. “Ms. Robins. Nice to finally meet you. This is Ted. Elsie’s boyfriend.”