Mothers and Other Strangers

by Gina Sorell

  Shit happens.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t want it to be like this,” said Ted as he buried his face in my chest and pulled me closer.

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want you to go,” he said, running his hands up and down my back.

  “Ted.…” I was worried where this was going.

  “I’ll come with you. We can go wherever you want. I’ll sell the house and we can travel, we can try again.…” His voice trailed off as he lifted me on the counter and kissed me.

  It was the most natural thing in the world, kissing him, and more than anything I wanted to be able to travel back, back to when our plans were laid out before us and we believed we could make them all come true. But that was never going to happen, and the only past I was willing to travel back into now was my mother’s.

  “Ted, please, listen,” I said, gently pushing his chest off of mine.

  “I’ve never stopped loving you and you’ve never stopped loving me,” he said, holding my face in his hands. “We can do this, Elsie. We can fix this, we can find a way.”

  Ted had always been about finding a way. He was one of those people who didn’t take no for an answer, who didn’t believe things were impossible or insurmountable. To him life was full of opportunities to be taken and challenges to be conquered. It was an amazing way of seeing the world, and as it had always worked for him, he insisted on applying it to me. We could fix my eating disorder, we could work through my past, we could tackle and defeat my depression, and we could find a way to have a child.

  At first his genuine belief that anything was possible inspired me, and at his urging I sought help, visited therapists, and worked on myself like the project I was. But over time his relentless optimism wore on me. I feared what would happen if things didn’t get better, if I didn’t stay better, and I worried about the day that Ted realized I was just a fucked-up mess and was always going to be a fucked-up mess. Would he still love me then? Would he know to just give up and accept me, and us, for who we were? Would he be able to embrace all the positive changes we had made and learn to live with the things we could not control? I didn’t think so. I told myself I’d find a way to live with my depression, find a way to live without having children, but I would never find a way to live with the disappointment I saw every day in Ted’s eyes when he looked at me, and the feeling he hid just below the surface that I hadn’t tried hard enough.

  I let him kiss me again. I had missed him. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about him and wish we were still together. I wished I could just be enough for him as I was, without a child.

  “Tell me one reason why we shouldn’t do this,” he said.

  He wanted more, and I couldn’t give it to him. I’d made a mistake in reconnecting; it wasn’t fair to him. His eyes were pleading, and I knew I had to tell him the one thing that would make him angry at me.

  “I opened the box.”

  “What?” He pulled away from me, his eyes wide.

  “My mother’s box. I opened it. She left me a letter, she wanted to explain, but she said it was my choice whether or not I wanted to know the truth. I could bury her secrets with her or uncover them. And I want to uncover them.”

  “Why?” He stepped back from the counter. “Why would you do that? You finally get a chance to bury that woman and everything about her and you can’t let it go?” His face had turned red and he was clenching his jaw.

  “Ted, she had relatives I never knew about, and there were obituaries for the two of us.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “People thought we had died, but someone knew the truth, someone who sent her notices in the paper, and pictures, someone who knows who she really was and can tell me what happened. I just have to find them.”

  “And how are you going to do that, huh? You want to tell me that?” His mouth was a tight line. He sat down, crossing his arms in front of his chest. It was a challenge. We both knew there was only one way.

  “I’m going to start looking,” I said quietly, bracing myself for what was next.

  “Really. And just where are you going to start?” He tilted his head and waited, daring me to say his name.

  “With the one person who knew her the best.”

  “Jesus, Elsie. You really want to go down that road again?”

  “Ted.…”

  “After everything he did, after everything he put you through? You know how long it took you—no, how long it took us to undo the damage that prick did? How many fucking therapy sessions, how many nights I held you in the dark when you woke up covered in sweat remembering how that asshole raped you and manipulated you?”

  “A lot, I know. And I’m grateful.”

  “I don’t want your gratitude. I want you to leave this alone. Otherwise everything we did, all the progress you made, you’re just throwing away.”

  “I can’t leave it alone. I need to find Philippe, and I think Henri can lead me to him.”

  “Henri as well. Wow. You really are hell-bent on destroying everything we worked so hard for.”

  “Ted.…”

  “Is that what I did wrong, Else? If I had been some crazy asshole like Henri, would you have stayed?”

  Ted wasn’t wrong to call him crazy. Henri had returned to Paris after New York, and judging by the letters he wrote me, he had rapidly unraveled. He’d enrolled in school for the fall, this time to study writing, but by winter he had lost interest in studying and wondered if writing could actually be learned or if one just needed to be born with the talent—a talent he didn’t believe he had. A few months later he dropped out and was making money as a waiter. He was hanging out with a group of artists and talked about being a photographer, working in a medium that would allow him to tell stories, but without words, as he put it. I read his letters through a filter of doubts, wondering if Philippe had been telling the truth about Henri’s mental state. I had once seen Henri as a kindred spirit, but now I read each sentence with more scrutiny, torn as to how serious his complaints were. I didn’t know if his life with the Seekers was as bad as he said it was, or if he was exaggerating like his father said, seeing enemies where there were none. One thing I never doubted was how powerful and dangerous Philippe was, and I did my best to keep track of his whereabouts through Henri’s letters, so I could avoid him at all costs.

  Six months after we’d seen each other in New York, Henri began experimenting heavily with drugs. He’d started with pot and hash and moved on to mushrooms and LSD. He rationalized his drug use as an experiential way to get in touch with his more intuitive side and likened it to the religion that his father peddled, without the need for a guru and blind devotion. The more time he spent away from Philippe and the Seekers, the more he wrote me about them. And eventually he stopped writing about anything else, and would even forget to ask how things were going on my end. The summer of my eighteenth birthday, he sent me one of his last troubling letters, telling me that he’d finally realized what his calling was. I read that letter so many times, disturbed by its contents, that I practically committed it to memory.

  Henri claimed to have experienced a breakthrough with some friends when they were taking mushrooms—it had allowed him to open his mind’s eye and see the things that he normally couldn’t see. He declared that it was his destiny as the son of the prophet to help all who were in darkness find the light. He was angry with his father and willing to challenge him and lead his disciples. He said he felt awake and alive in a way that he’d never known. No longer listless and wandering about, he was a man on a mission, like his father, but his mission was different; his mission was about salvation and the greater good, and he was devoting himself to it. Instead of his normal sign-off, A La Prochaine, he wrote, Let all who seek, find the light.

  After that, when I didn’t hear from him for months, I was more than a little relieved. His letters had started to frighten me, and I told myself that maybe he’d written them when he was high, and that his i
ncreasing drug use was just a phase. I wasn’t a prude by any means; a lot of the dancers liked to smoke a little pot and I’d tried it, too, but this was different. I thought back to the times Henri and I had been together and wondered if the sudden shifts I’d witnessed, from joy to anger, had been more than just the mood swings of an angry young man. I remembered him urgently clutching my hands in the Indian restaurant and shouting about how he needed to find his passion. I thought about how uncomfortable I’d felt, the other diners staring at us. Was it more than just anxiety about finding his purpose? Was it madness as well? I didn’t know what to think. But I knew what I wanted to believe—that the old Henri I had shared myself with would return.

  It was the weekend of my eighteenth birthday when I finally saw him again. I’d been living at the house with the other dancers for almost two years, and they’d planned a small party in honor not just of my birthday but of my graduating from school. When Henri eventually reached out and told me he was coming to town and wanted to see me, I invited him to the party and said he could stay at the house. I wanted him to see where I was living. It wasn’t that the house itself was so special; in fact, on the outside it was little more than a run-down rooming house. But on the inside it was a home. We’d painted every room a different color and decorated with furniture and pictures that we’d found at yard sales and thrift stores. The landlord was absent and the rent was cheap, so we didn’t mind the inconveniences of sharing one bathroom and an old kitchen in which we did little more than make coffee. We all pretty much had the same schedule, and it was nice to be among people who understood the importance of living and breathing what you did. We were one big, incestuous, dysfunctional family, obsessed with dancing, working out, and staying thin. We overlooked each other’s eating disorders, massaged each other’s sore muscles, and provided each other with comfort when lonely. I was happy here. Happier than I had ever been living with my mother, happier than I was the last time I’d seen Henri.

  I was nervous about seeing him again but hopeful that he meant it when he said that all the traveling he’d done, all the soul searching, had paid off and he wanted to share that. His voice sounded calmer than it ever had, the crazy letters had stopped, and I found myself daydreaming about what life might be like for the two of us if he stayed put long enough. Of course, I didn’t share these thoughts with anyone. I made it a point not to talk about my life outside the company. Not talking about my mother or Philippe or what had happened made it easier to forget.

  The other dancers knew who Henri was; they had seen him at our performance in New York, and they’d taken his calls at the house, and every now and then they’d bust my chops about the older French dude who they said had money to travel the world but called collect. I let them think he was my foreign lover, and everything else about him I kept to myself.

  On that weekend, thanks to a trip to the dollar store, the house was done up in streamers, paper lanterns, and balloons. There were big plastic bowls of chips and popcorn that would remain untouched until everyone was too drunk to remember they shouldn’t be eating junk food, and in the kitchen some of the dancers were busy making a punch of cheap vodka, cranberry juice, and Sprite. Someone was playing DJ, uncoiling speaker wire so music could be heard on the front porch, and somebody else was setting out candles and ashtrays. I stood on the stairs and smiled. I had never had a birthday party, and even though I knew this party was also a great excuse for all of us to do it up before our week off from rehearsals, I was touched. I’d dressed up in honor of Henri’s visit and was wearing a yellow and white shift with black tights and black flats. I’d ironed my hair straight, done my eyes in black liquid eyeliner, and put on pale-pink lipstick.

  “Well, well, look at you,” said Antoine as I made my way down the stairs. “Girl, you look just like a beautiful bumblebee; that boy better watch out you don’t sting him!” He laughed and twirled me around.

  “Too much?” I asked.

  “Perfect,” he said, giving me the once-over. “You’re all grown up now—he’s not gonna know what hit him.” He took a sip of his drink and offered his glass to me.

  “Oh no thanks.” I stared at my watch. I was going to be late.

  Antoine looked at me closely. “You all right? You don’t seem too excited.”

  “I am. I just gotta take care of something first,” I said, heading toward the door.

  “Where are you going? It’s your party.”

  “Not for a few hours still. I have an errand to run.”

  “She remembered it’s your birthday?”

  I stopped and turned to face Antoine as he raised his eyebrow and took another sip.

  I didn’t talk about my mother to the other dancers, but it didn’t take a genius to notice I was the only person who never had any family at any of our shows, never mind the fact I was always available to attend someone else’s Thanksgiving dinner. A few of the dancers had moved to Toronto and were away from family, so it wasn’t uncommon for us to tag along on someone else’s holiday, but I was the only one who was always solo. Antoine had noticed it right away. He said he figured any girl who chose to pay rent at the age of sixteen when she could stay somewhere else for free must have a pretty good reason to do so. He told me he’d left home when he was sixteen too, after his father had decided no son of mine was going to be a fairy ballerina. For a long time nobody came to watch his performances either. And then one day he looked out and saw his mother sitting in the audience. His father had died, and she’d decided she’d be damned if she was going to die without ever having seen her only son dance. It was the kind of thing I had secretly hoped for myself, my mother surprising me in the front row of the audience. And even though I knew it would never happen, I still left her name on the company’s annual mailing list, just in case.

  “She only has to remember it once a year.” I took Antoine’s glass and finished his drink. “I’ll be back in an hour, and then we’ll celebrate,” I said, running out the door and down the front steps.

  Antoine was right: the errand was my mother. She had called that morning and insisted we have dinner together. When I explained that I had plans, she took the birthday party being thrown for me as a personal insult, so I’d agreed to go by her apartment and hopefully get the fifty-dollar birthday check she’d given me every birthday since I turned sixteen. I promised myself I would just get in and get out. I wouldn’t take her bait about not calling, not visiting, and how nice it must be for me to be able to follow my dreams when she herself had sacrificed so much for that to happen. My mother had never been so interested in my life as when I decided to move out and absolve her of the one responsibility that she had, and resented me for: being my mother. And yet she still managed to avoid seeing me perform. I didn’t bother to ask her why anymore, and she no longer offered excuses. We both knew the reason. I had something that made me very happy. Something she had no part in. And if it wasn’t about her, she wasn’t interested.

  I looked for Vincent in the lobby, but he wasn’t around, and I decided to go straight up and not bother signing the registry. I have often thought back on how if I had, I may have been able to stop what happened next. I would have seen Philippe’s name on the registry, along with Henri’s.

  I entered my mother’s apartment and felt the door quickly shut behind me. Henri reached behind my back, locked the door and ushered me into the room. My mother was sitting on the couch, her face frozen in fear, and Philippe was sitting as far back against the cushions as he could manage, his eyes wide and his skin white. Henri grabbed me in a hug and kissed my hair as he whispered, “I was waiting for you. I can do this now.”

  I pulled back from him and saw the knife in his hand.

  “What are you doing? What’s going on?” I looked at Henri, who was staring straight ahead, his eyes wide.

  “Don’t worry, you don’t need to be afraid. Only liars and false prophets need to fear, and we are neither.”

  “He’s crazy! He’s crazy and you told him to come here?
” my mother spat out.

  “I didn’t tell him to come here. I thought it was just us meeting for dinner.” I tried not to look at Philippe as I said it. I never would have set foot into the apartment had I known he’d be there.

  “Henri, tell me what’s wrong?” I asked softly. His eyes were wild and he was sweating. He was breathing quickly and tightening his hand around the knife.

  “He’s what’s wrong,” said Henri, pointing the knife in the direction of his father. “He’s leading everyone astray. He’s squandering the will of his people.”

  “He’s off his bloody medication again,” said Philippe. “Henri, please give me the knife,” I said gently touching his arm.

  “Listen to your girlfriend,” said Philippe. His tone was icy, and I felt him staring at me.

  “Girlfriend?” asked my mother. “So you’re a part of this?” She clenched her good hand into a fist.

  “Come on, let’s go,” I said, inching closer toward him.

  “Not all of us live selfishly, as if this was the only life we will ever know,” my mother snapped. “Neither of you can stand the fact that someone can actually do something good with their life and make a difference.” She adjusted her gaze to me alone. “He’s a good man, and you’re jealous that he makes me happy.”

  I stood glued to the spot, my mouth hanging open in shock. It all came down to the one-sided competition my mother had with me. A competition I had briefly participated in, the night I met Philippe. This wasn’t about right and wrong, true or false; this was about who was the most popular girl in the room, and I was playing it with my mother.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. He’s a fucking fraud! Your good man forced himself on me. Why do you think I left?”

  The room was so quiet that I could hear my heart pounding. All eyes were on me, but my eyes were locked onto my mother’s.

  “What did you say?” she asked slowly.

  “You heard me,” I said, starting to cry, unable to tear my gaze away from her. I didn’t dare look at Philippe or Henri. “Almost two years ago, in my room, when he showed me he had found my letters to Henri.”