Mothers and Other Strangers

by Gina Sorell

  I looked at the photo closely and could recognize my mother’s face in the older child. I’d never seen the other people before. I turned the photo over and read the back. Africa, 1943, Mama, Papa, Ray, and me.

  I’d never met my grandparents. My mother had told me that her mother died in childbirth and her father passed away just before I was born. She’d never mentioned any siblings, and until now I had no idea that my mother had a sister. She had a large birthmark on her cheek and looked to be five or six years younger than my mother. If that was the case, my aunt would have been only around thirteen when my mother got married and fourteen when I was born. Why was it that I had never met my aunt? The room felt like it was spinning. Family. I had family, or at least I used to. Who knew where they were now, or if any of them were even still alive. There were more photos. I forced myself to take a deep breath and gently peeled them from their pages and laid them out on the bed according to the years written on the back. There was one for each year, each with the same pose of the family in the foreground and the house and farm in the background. The only thing that changed were the ages of the people in the pictures, their faces affixed with tight smiles that the photographer had probably called for, until 1950. Papa, Isaac, me. Ray, my mother, was gone in this photo, and this time the younger woman held a small baby. My grandmother was also absent from the photo, and something told me that she had died delivering this baby, who must’ve been Isaac. My mother had always said she was an only child, and now here were two siblings. For the next few years the pictures stayed the same, until 1953. This one had only Isaac and me, no Papa. I looked back at the face of the young woman, my mother’s younger sister, in the photo. She appeared so much older than the one before, her expression serious as she clutched the hand of her brother Isaac, now a chubby little toddler, and stared straight into the camera, and straight into me.

  Me. There was no other name given to this person in the photos, and with my mother gone I had no one to ask. I looked closely at my mother’s younger sister in the photograph. With the exception of the titles of the pictures themselves, there was little else that would connect my mother to these people. She didn’t look exactly like them, her fair hair and lighter skin setting her apart. That and the distance that she seemed to place between herself and the others. She was like the plus one in an RSVP, accounted for but not necessarily invited. And yet she kept these pictures, which had either been left to her or sent to her by the me in the photos.

  I had to find me. My hands were trembling, and I squeezed them together to make them stop. Carefully, I flipped through the book to the next page of pictures. There was one of my mother with her hair long, parted to the side and draped in front over her collarbone. She is lying on the sand, propped up on her elbows and wearing a halter-top one-piece swimsuit. The sun is in her eyes and she is smiling at the camera. Sitting straight up next to her is a man who looks to be at least ten years older. He is in shorts and a short-sleeved button-down, and he is staring at her, a small smile on his face. Howard and Rachel, Muizenberg Beach, 1947. The next photo was taken on the same day, and my mother is waving at someone off in the distance and laughing, her hair wild in the wind. In this one, Howard stands tall next to her and stares at the person she is waving at, a strange expression on his face. My mother had always described Howard as a cripple, but I saw no evidence of that in these photos. Why would she lie? Did she think it made her seem more sympathetic to be married to a man who was disabled? I took a deep breath before turning the page, although I knew I’d find who they were looking at: Leo, my real father. And there he was. I held my breath as I stared at him. Tall, tanned, and shirtless in his swimming trunks, his slender frame leaning against his surfboard. His chin was tilted upward, and he had a devilish grin. He was young and beautiful, and I drank in every freckle on his sun-kissed face. Leo, Muizenberg Beach, 1947. There were more, the three of them in their summer clothes, waving flags at a parade: Here comes the Queen! At an outdoor café, Leo in a summer suit, kissing my mother tenderly on the forehead, her head on his shoulder, arms thrown around his neck. There was Howard, sitting at an outdoor table littered with empty champagne bottles and flutes, a highball glass in front of him and a faraway look in his eyes. The pictures told a story of two brothers in love with the same woman, and I wondered how hard that must have been for Howard. But more than that, I wondered why he had lied to me about never having a brother. I looked again at the picture of Leo. It was like looking at myself in a mirror, the face familiar, the eyes sad even when smiling. I inhaled sharply and wiped a tear from the corner of my eye before it fell onto the photo. I wish I had known him. I would have wrapped my arms around his neck and held my face against his, nestled myself between my parents, and smiled for the picture.

  I gently returned the picture to its page holder, running my finger around my father’s face as I did so. This was my mother’s life before me. Why had she told me nothing of it? Why had she kept her family hidden? I turned to the last page. It was a group picture: my mother and her younger sister, the woman called me, standing between Howard and Leo. They were all dressed up, my mother stunning in a strapless gown, with a simple wreath of flowers in her hair. The picture was taken at the entrance of a spectacular mansion, with people milling around with cocktails in the background, and my mother glowed as she smiled at the camera. The Robins’ Annual Spring Fling Party, 1947. I wondered who had taken this photo and what caused my mother to have hidden it in this box. I slowly unfolded the old newspaper clippings, careful not to rip the fragile little pieces of paper. They were death notices. The first was for a Hannah Mills, 1950, died in childbirth. Hannah leaves behind a loving husband Jacob and three wonderful children…but no names of the children. I gently folded it back up and looked at the next one, from 1953. Samuel Mills, died of natural causes. He leaves behind three children.… And, finally, Rachel Mills Robins, died in a fire along with her husband Howard and their daughter, Elspeth.

  I dropped the book onto my lap. We had died in a fire? What the hell was this? Suddenly the dreams of fire were more terrifying than before. I knew there was a connection between my dreams and the death notices, but what it was, I still didn’t understand. There was something there, something on the edges of my brain that flickered in and out, something just beyond my reach, and I tried to catch it, but it slipped away. I stood up from the bed and started pacing the apartment. My head was spinning, and I opened the window for a blast of icy air. This wasn’t happening to me. It was bad enough that my mother and I were incapable of having a healthy relationship, but to have confirmation—hard proof—that I never even really knew her? It was too much. I took in a huge breath of cold air and tried to numb my face with the cold. My whole life I had wondered about my real father, wondered why we never went back to Africa, why Howard had so easily given up on me and moved on as my mother had claimed. But Howard hadn’t moved on, he had died. Or had he? After all, my mother and I were alive, so why did we have obituaries? I walked over to the phone but stopped myself. I couldn’t bother Ted again, especially not after he’d been right. Much like everything else in my relationship with my mother, for every hard-earned victory came several more bombs lying in wait.

  I grabbed the album and took another look at my death notice. I peeled it off the page and saw a little note written in the margin on the back. Thought you’d want to know. I scanned the top of the page to see which newspaper this had come from, but any sign of publication had been removed. It could be from a local paper anywhere in South Africa. I wanted to go to Africa, to find that farm and ask someone about my mother, but where would I start? I never even had a proper birth certificate, although now I knew why. If it hadn’t been for Ted hiring a lawyer to help us, I may never have gotten working papers, let alone a passport.

  I picked up the box and shook it, half expecting a trap door to appear in its bottom, but there was nothing, just a box full of questions. I returned its contents, closed the lid, and used the rubber band that had
been holding the photo album together to keep it shut. And there on the bottom of the box was an inscription.

  For D, another place to bury the past…here’s to the future.

  Always,

  Philippe

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Philippe. It was a name that had started and ended many arguments I’d had with my mother. Long before I even knew the man, I knew what he meant to her, and that had been enough for me to decide he was somebody I wouldn’t get along with. His name started coming up in conversations right after I’d first heard it on the phone at my mother’s apartment. Philippe had thought this, or Philippe had said that, and whenever my mother and I were at a stalemate on some issue, it would be Philippe and his indisputable knowledge or unfaltering wisdom that she would quote to turn the argument in her favor. It was like getting in a boxing ring and discovering after eight rounds that your opponent has an extra set of hands, ones that were stronger and better than your own. He was her secret weapon. Somehow this man, who had traveled the world and had degrees in philosophy, psychology, and religion, had been able to pass on his infinite wisdom to my mother by osmosis, and his experiences had become hers.

  I knew by the way she said his name that they were lovers: a slightly affected French accent that pulled on the sides of her mouth when she said the i’s, and the little exhale on the final e. Fee-lee-puh, her lips lingering a moment too long on the pronunciation of it. It made my jaw tighten every time she said it, and out of spite I insisted on referring to him as Phil. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her to be happy; it was that I didn’t understand how she could be happy when she made my life so miserable.

  When I was fourteen, I invited my mother to a recital for the dance company that I’d been working with, a small, casual event for family and friends. I thought she might like to see what I had been doing every waking hour outside of school and sleep, and to my surprise she agreed. My mother had always been an admirer of the performing arts, and I secretly hoped that when she saw me perform, that admiration would extend to me.

  The recital was held on a rainy Saturday afternoon in one of the larger studios instead of the theater. I stood at the edge of the floor against the wall in my leotard and tights, hair pulled back into a bun, watching as the other parents came in slightly worse for wear from the downpour outside. Mine was the last group to perform, and with just two minutes left until we started, my mother was still nowhere to be seen. I tugged at my leg warmers and tried to stay loose and focused on the routine and not on the loud ticking of the wall clock. It wouldn’t be the first time that she had stood me up, and I closed my eyes and tried to count backward to calm myself. When I opened them, my mother was entering, just as they were closing the door. The sound of her high heels clicked against the hardwood floor announcing her arrival, and all eyes turned toward her. She had on full makeup, and her hair was long and loose around her shoulders. She had donned her best well-heeled-patron-of-the-arts attire, and was so poised and trim in her pencil skirt and long-sleeve ballerina top that she looked like a dancer herself. And that was the point. As she made her way to the front row, one of the dads jumped out of his chair and gave her his seat. Once again, my mother had managed to take center stage, and I could feel the other dancers trying to figure out whose mother she was. My cheeks got hot, and when I refused to look at her, she whispered my name, just loud enough to be heard, and gave me a little wave. Just like that, everybody knew.

  In spite of her grand entrance, I still managed to dance my best. Dancing was when I lost myself completely. The moment I started moving, the chatter in my brain would go quiet and every cell in my body would be absorbed into the movement. I could fly when I was dancing, unencumbered by the baggage of my daily life; I was pure energy, light, and emotion. Words would never come close to expressing what I could say onstage. In dance, I had a confidence and a calm that eluded me elsewhere. If I could’ve spent every waking hour dancing, I would have.

  If my mother’s entrance was dramatic, her exit was no less so. After taking my final bow and collecting my things, I found her holding court with some of the male dancers, boys much closer to my age than hers. She was making them laugh and blush with praise that she emphasized by placing a hand on a bare arm here or a wrist there. I could feel the disapproving gaze of some of the other parents, and I stormed past her and out the doors onto the street, where I waited for her to follow. After almost twenty minutes she joined me, saying only that after all the time I’d spent dancing with the company, she thought I’d have a larger part. It was the only performance of mine she ever attended. There was no need for her to attend any others; she had made her point.

  As with all of the things my mother truly treasured, she had tried to keep Philippe to herself, but she still bragged about him every chance she got. He was like that one party that you missed in high school, the “best party ever,” and you’d have no way of knowing if such a party really was true, as you had not been there. I’d even started to wonder if Philippe was real, and then the summer of my sixteenth birthday, I met him.

  It was the weekend before I was to go on tour with the modern dance company I’d been working with during the school year. After all my hard work, I’d finally been offered a part in the company’s summer tour. I accepted it without even checking with my mother, knowing that the two of us would welcome the chance to be away from each other for two months. It was a typical humid Toronto summer, the heat sticking to the back of my neck, my T-shirt always slightly damp at my lower back where I kept my messenger bag slung to one side. I was happier than I had ever been, knowing I was going away and bursting with the secret that I wasn’t going to come back.

  I believe it was because I was going away for the summer, and because I’d turned sixteen, that my mother asked if I would like to accompany her to one of her meetings with the Seekers. It was a grand gesture, an opportunity to show me a part of her life, now that I was “old enough to appreciate it.” And I knew that Philippe was in town for the weekend, and this way she wouldn’t have to cancel her plans with him. She’d arranged for the three of us to go out to dinner after.

  “Happy birthday, Elsie,” said Vincent as I walked into the lobby of Dalewood.

  “Thanks.”

  “Big plans?”

  “Big.”

  “By the look on your face, I’m guessing really big. Make sure they’re good ones.”

  “I leave Monday for my first dance tour.” And I’m not coming back, I wanted to say, but I knew better than to burden Vincent with another secret. Who knows how many he was keeping about Dalewood.

  “The first of many, I am sure.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Aren’t you going up?”

  “No, I’ll wait here.” I played with the little bit of crochet lace on the hem of my peasant skirt, flicking it up and down with my ankles as I sat on the edge of the lobby fountain. I’d bought the skirt with part of my first week’s per diem money in Kensington Market. It was the color of lilacs and had rainbow-colored stitching around the waist and pockets. It was a little fuller than I would have gone for, but after living in cutoff tights and leotards it felt nice to wear something that didn’t cling to my skin. It also concealed my tiny frame, which meant that I could get through a meal without my mother getting competitive with me.

  The elevator button for the ninth floor lit up, signaling my mother’s descent. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and counted backward, opening them only seconds before the door opened and she made her entrance.

  “There you are.” She waited for me to stand and greet her and I did, awkwardly touching my cheek to hers in what should have been a kiss.

  “Sixteen, Vincent. Can you believe it? I mean, do I really look old enough to have a sixteen-year-old daughter?” She wore her long hair down for the occasion, and she tossed it back over her shoulders and held her chin a little higher.

  “No. You barely look older than sixteen yourself.” He smiled at her and then at me, raising
his eyebrow ever so slightly.

  “Well, that’s because I take care of myself.” She ran her good hand along the side of her body, stopping to rest it at her slender waist. She was wearing black cigarette pants that showed off her toned legs, gold beaded sandals, and a silk embroidered tunic that opened just enough to reveal her pronounced collarbones. Around her shoulders she had casually draped a soft scarf that looked beautiful against her honey-colored hair. The look was fashionable and slightly bohemian, without being too showy. I could tell that she was dressed to impress without wanting to seem so.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Exercise and diet, so important. After all my body is my temple.…”

  “You look great, Mother.” I knew this speech. It wouldn’t end until she was complimented, and I wanted us to get along tonight.

  “Thank you, Elspeth.” She gave me the quick once-over and then clapped her hands together. “We better get going, we don’t want to be late.”

  “See ya, Vincent,” I said.

  “You take care now,” he said.

  I nodded and smiled, meeting Vincent’s eyes, and wished, as I had a thousand times, that I could read his mind.

  The taxi dropped us off outside of an old brick building downtown. Large stone archways framed the entrance, and two gaslit lamps stood on either side of the heavy glass and wood doors. It wasn’t a temple, that much I knew. The Seekers didn’t use a regular house of worship; only a religion needed a temple or church. They were a philosophy, a collective of like-minded souls, holding their meetings in different places that were made available by their individual members.