The Perfect Mom

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “Because I screwed up!”

  Kathleen shook her head. “No. Maybe. Maybe we both made mistakes and poor choices. But the truth is, I’ve spent so many years polishing my image, I never let you see how flawed I am inside, and that was my big mistake.”

  Sharon, wisely, stayed silent, her head turning as she listened.

  Emma hugged herself. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know Granddad. And you remember Grandma pretty well, don’t you?”

  The teenager nodded.

  Kathleen told her then, for the first time, what she’d told Logan: how she had seemingly been born dissatisfied with her place in life, how she had cringed at her mother’s ungrammatical speech and been ashamed of their weedy, shaggy lawn and exhaust-spewing car and tiny dark living room with dingy shag carpet and worn recliners.

  Mouth twisted, she said, “I wanted so badly to be popular, and I thought that meant I had to be rich and well-dressed and have a great house. Ryan and I fought about it all the time. He called me a princess and a snob.” She was quiet for a moment. “He was right.”

  “But…it’s not so bad…” Emma said haltingly.

  “It is if you deny the people who love you and pretend you’re something you aren’t.” Kathleen sat very still, her hands folded on her lap and her back straight, saying all these things that were so hard to admit. “Mom—Grandma—was a waitress. She worked really, really hard so that Ryan and I could have decent clothes and money to buy yearbooks and go out for sports and to dances. I lied to my friends about what my parents did. I was too good for them.”

  “But…maybe…” Emma tried again.

  “Grandpa has his own flaws. He irritates me and I irritate him. But he does love me.” She hesitated again, then stripped herself bare. “Did you ever wonder why he came to the house so seldom, and never when other people were there? Even then, as an adult, I was ashamed of him. I had perfected,” she mocked herself, “my snooty rich persona, but he was a crack I couldn’t cover with makeup or an amusing story. So I just didn’t invite him.”

  “Did…does he know?” Emma whispered.

  “How can he help it?” Kathleen heard the self-loathing in her voice. “Either that, or he assumes I just don’t want to see him. I’m not sure. I never let myself wonder. I never let myself care about what he thought or felt.” She tried to smile, felt it waver. “What does that make me?”

  Her daughter gaped. “But…you’re always so nice. I don’t believe you.”

  “Believe it,” Kathleen said harshly. “Your mother is a fake. What you see is a mask disguising someone ugly behind it.”

  Emma jumped to her feet. “I don’t believe you! Don’t you love me?”

  Kathleen stood, too. Tears in her eyes, she said, “Of course I love you! So much that I wanted to be the perfect mom in your eyes. So I kept on pretending. Until…” Her voice faltered. “Until the day I realized you were killing yourself trying to be perfect, too. And I saw what a sham my whole life was. So I took you and started over. Only—” this smile twisted, too “—I’m discovering that changing the outside isn’t good enough. And changing me isn’t easy.” She knew she was crying openly. “I’m sorry, Emma.”

  Emma’s face crumpled, but she dashed away the tears. “You’re lying,” she cried. “It’s me…I’m the one…”

  Kathleen took a step toward her, hand out. “You’re the one who has to get well. But maybe we both need to learn to like ourselves again.”

  Emma lurched back to avoid her touch. “You’ve made all this up! You want me to think…to think nothing is my fault. But I don’t believe you!”

  The next moment, she ran for the door. Both women heard the thud of her footsteps racing down the hall.

  Kathleen closed her eyes, tears seeping from beneath the lids.

  She was still standing there, eyes closed, hands dangling helplessly at her side, when she felt a gentle touch on her arm. She blinked and, through the blur of tears, saw Sharon nod.

  “I’m proud of you. What you did couldn’t have been easy.”

  “But it didn’t do a speck of good,” Kathleen said hopelessly.

  “Oh, yes, it did. Chances are, she’s going to get really mad at you because you’re not perfect. She can take you off the pedestal, as every other normal teenager does her parents. And, especially for Emma, that’s really important. Just give her time, Kathleen.”

  Time.

  Well, time marched on whether it was helping or hindering, so she might as well hope.

  She nodded, gave an unhappy smile and said, “Why not? What else can I do?”

  HER MOTHER WAS LYING. She had to be lying!

  Emma slammed the door to her room, then angrily opened it a few inches so the hall Nazis would leave her alone. Flinging herself onto her bed, she punched her pillows into place and lay against them with her arms tightly crossed over her chest, glaring at the wall.

  Mom had never said any of that before! Sharon had probably coached her into coming up with some story. Emma could just see it.

  “We need to show her you have feet of clay. What can you say?”

  Thrumming with rage and shock, Emma still faltered on this scenario. Mom hadn’t seemed rehearsed. She’d looked really tired, and almost old. Mom never went anywhere without her makeup perfect and her hair casually styled but chic and her clothes put together as if she hadn’t given it any thought but made everything look elegant. Today, her shoes hadn’t matched her suit. Emma had noticed that. They were blue, and Mom had worn them with a brown skirt and blazer. And her hair had been kind of stringy, and maybe she hadn’t even put on eye makeup.

  When she stood up and started to walk out, she seemed…not mad, but fed up. That had scared Emma. Her mother had never given up on her before, and today, for a minute, she’d looked like she was going to.

  She wouldn’t, would she? Emma tried to scoff at her own fear. If Mom had left Dad and her perfect marriage for her own daughter, she wouldn’t give up. How could she? That would be like admitting that she’d made this huge mistake, and Mom didn’t make mistakes.

  Except, today Mom said she did. Big ones.

  And Emma couldn’t help wondering whether Mom wasn’t thinking that leaving Dad was one of them.

  Only… Emma felt a surge of hope. Dad wouldn’t exactly have been dazzled if he’d seen Mom today. Maybe, if he and Mom had had lunch this past week, he’d be the one who wouldn’t be interested in them getting together again.

  Fear clutched her chest. Face it, she thought in despair, they’re perfect together. If Mom hadn’t chosen you… If she doesn’t keep choosing you…

  Emma couldn’t even think about going back to live with her dad. Not after he’d grabbed her with rough hands and shoved food into her mouth and kept shoving and shoving, while she gagged and tears and snot ran down her face and she was choking. Her vision had been going funny, and she wondered if she would have died. Whenever she thought of him, before she could blank it out she had a flicker of remembrance of his face—all contorted with rage because she wasn’t good enough to be his daughter.

  Mom wouldn’t go back to him! She must remember, too. She’d beaten on his shoulders with her fists, screaming at him, until he’d let Emma go and she’d fallen from her chair to her hands and knees, food falling from her mouth as her stomach heaved and she fought for breath.

  Through streaming eyes, Emma had looked up and seen this look of revulsion on Mom’s face as she turned on Dad.

  “What you just did,” she had said in an oddly quiet voice, “is unforgivable.” She’d knelt by Emma and whacked her back, helping her get chunks of bread up, then hoisted her to her feet and led her from the room.

  The very next morning, they had moved out.

  Emma hadn’t seen her father again, and she didn’t want to. Not ever.

  Mom wouldn’t abandon her, Emma knew that.

  She thought she knew that.

  But if it was true and Mom had, like, ignored Grandpa and not invit
ed him over and stuff because she was ashamed of him, what if she got so she was ashamed of Emma?

  Emma flipped over and hugged her pillow. No! Mom had to be lying. She was too…too nice to be that mean to Grandpa! Emma didn’t like her grandfather that much, either. Mostly when they went over he ignored her and kept watching baseball on TV and sometimes he’d belch and this horrible stale beer smell would waft to Emma. He’d bellow at the TV or at some other driver if he got mad when he was behind the wheel and he used words Emma’s parents never said, especially around her.

  But she’d also seen the way he looked at her mother sometimes, as if he did love her. His face, for just a minute, would soften. Other times, when Mom made an excuse, Emma had seen an expression she hadn’t understood. Now she thought it was a kind of bewilderment, as if he didn’t know what he’d done wrong.

  So maybe it was true, that Mom was ashamed of him and had not invited him to Christmas or Thanksgiving celebrations because she and Dad had friends over, and she didn’t want them to meet him.

  Emma’s stomach churned. If Mom could be that mean, then maybe she wasn’t anything like Emma had always believed her to be. Maybe she was a fake.

  The idea was too weird. It was scary and disorienting and also exhilarating, in a strange way. She had spent years watching her mother with a kind of despair, because Mom was so pretty and had such a wonderful smile and laugh and everybody liked her the minute they met her and she was never stupid or graceless or unkind.

  All the other kids at school rolled their eyes when they talked about their mothers. “What’s her problem?” they’d mutter, or, “Can you believe it? My mother wants to take me shopping! Like she knows how to pick out clothes.”

  Emma had always rolled her eyes, too, but she didn’t mean it. Her mother had better taste than she did. When she picked Emma up somewhere and chatted for a minute with the other kids, the next day they’d be saying, “Your mom is so-o cool! I wish my mom was like her.”

  Emma had always been filled with pride mixed with despair, because nobody ever told her she was cool, or they wished they were like her, and she knew in her heart they never would. If she grew up and got married and had kids, their friends wouldn’t be saying, “Your mom is so cool!”

  But now, she knew her mother was a big fat liar. Sometimes, maybe she could let herself hate Mom, not because she was jealous, but because Mom deserved it for letting her think she was so perfect.

  Emma squeezed her pillows in her arms, feeling angry and giddy at the same time. She was glad she knew.

  Aloud, she said, “My mother is a fake.”

  She loved the ring of it.

  KATHLEEN SOUNDED BREATHLESS when she answered the phone.

  “Did I get you from something?” Logan asked. He sat in his recliner, the remote control on his lap. First he’d muted the Mariner game, then turned it off. He couldn’t call her while he watched baseball on the boob tube, a cold beer open on the end table beside him. Not after her tale about her father.

  “I just walked in the door,” she admitted. “Okay, ran.”

  “Counseling,” he remembered.

  “Yes, another wonderful hour spent confronting my daughter. Except it wasn’t an hour. As usual, she tore out in the middle.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  “No, it’s okay. Tonight I asked for it, I guess. I got…frustrated and almost walked out myself. I’ve had a really lousy day.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked. Only half joking, he added, “I could come over, if you need a shoulder to cry on.”

  There was a moment of silence, and he feared he’d taken too much for granted. She had friends, housemates, who would be happy to hear her troubles. Why would she choose him?

  “Do you mean that? You’d go out in the rain, so I could blubber on you?” she asked.

  His hand tightened on the receiver, but he kept his tone light. “I kinda like it when you do that.”

  She gave a funny, choked laugh. “I would love it if you’d come over. Jo is over at Ryan’s, and Helen and Ginny went to a school open house. They just left. The house seems awfully empty.”

  “I don’t mind being a stand-in,” he said, meaning it. “I brought home a pizza. I forgot everyone else was going to be gone, so there’s plenty. I can at least feed you.”

  He didn’t have the heart to tell her he’d eaten. If you could call a sandwich slapped together in his kitchen eating.

  “Deal. I’ll be over in fifteen minutes.”

  Thanks to the rain, it actually took longer than that. Normally a patient driver, he got downright irritable when Seattle drivers panicked at rain-wet roads. It wasn’t as if it never rained in the Pacific Northwest! But half the drivers slowed to a terrified crawl, and the other half didn’t slow down at all, which meant that accidents blocked the freeways and clogged city streets. It took him ten minutes to get half a mile up 15th. Then he had to park two blocks from Kathleen’s house.

  “Sorry,” he said, when Kathleen let him in her front door. He shoved his wet hair off his forehead. “Accident in Ballard. Bunch of idiots rear-ended each other. And now I’m dripping on your floor.”

  “Just a minute.” She disappeared toward the downstairs bathroom, coming back with a plush towel. “Here. Goodness, you are soaked.”

  He stripped off his slicker and then gave his hair a quick rub with the towel. “Thanks,” he said, hanging it on the coatrack on top of his slicker.

  “Come on into the kitchen. Let me reheat the pizza in the microwave.”

  Logan followed her, noting with amusement the fuzzy slippers and faded, sacky sweatshirt she wore with jeans. She hadn’t dressed up for him tonight. Good sign or bad?

  “Can I help?”

  “No, it’ll just take me a second.” She waved toward the table. “Sit down. Beer? Milk? Pop?”

  She set the microwave to humming, then got him a beer and herself a soda. While she brought plates and silverware to the table, he took in her bare face and damp hair pulled carelessly back. The funny thing was, she looked more beautiful than ever to him. It was like a house just going up, the clean lines not yet cluttered with shutters or foundation shrubs or curtains fluttering in windows. She had the kind of face that would still be striking when she was eighty.

  As she shuffled back to the table carrying a huge pizza on its cardboard tray, he decided he liked her better this way. She didn’t intimidate him so much.

  “Here,” he said, standing and divesting her of the pizza. Sniffing, he came to the conclusion that he was hungry after all. “Smells great.”

  They ate, making minimal conversation. She did tell him about the first part of her day: the flat tire and the four expensive new ones.

  “I forget to check tires or oil.” She waved her slice of pizza, then had to take a quick bite to rescue the toppings. When she’d swallowed, she said, “That kind of stuff. I never do it. I go out and get behind the wheel and stick in the key. I just don’t think. I’ve got to learn to. I’m lucky I wasn’t on the freeway when I had a blowout.”

  “Yeah.” Not liking the idea, he frowned. “Do you know how to check the oil?”

  She made a face at him. “That much, I can manage.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “Getting it on my schedule is another story,” she admitted with a sigh.

  Pushing away his plate, he said, “So what else went wrong with your day?”

  “I had to throw away two pairs of panty hose.” She laughed at his expression. “They’re expensive. Two pairs in one day is a minor to major glitch in the budget.”

  “O-kay.”

  Kathleen laughed again. “No, that’s not the main reason my day stank. It was the tire, and spending money I didn’t have, and then we were short-staffed at work and I didn’t get lunch, so I was cranky, and finally there was Emma.”

  “No more cooperative than ever?”

  Looking plainer than he’d ever seen her, she said wearily, “No.” Then she b
it her lip and jumped up. “I’ll make coffee.”

  They took it to the living room, where she curled up at one end of the sofa and he sat at the other. A half-grown orange kitten leaped up to sprawl on the back of the sofa and contemplate Logan. The two eyes didn’t seem to be quite pointing in the same direction, which he found mildly unnerving.

  “His eyes are a little odd,” he said, nodding at the kitten. “Was he born that way?”

  Kathleen told him about Jo, Emma and Ginny stopping to pet kittens when they saw a Free Kitten sign and discovering that tiny Pirate had been attacked by a dog and had an eye hanging from the socket. “We spent a small fortune to save it,” she said ruefully, “and we don’t even know if he can see out of it. He refuses to read an eye chart.”

  Logan chuckled. “I’ve heard cats do fine with only one eye.”

  “Yes, but the girls were both so upset, we thought we had to try.” Her voice became slightly husky. “Emma hugged me. I figured it was worth every penny.”

  “More rewarding than new tires.”

  Her laugh came more naturally. “No kidding.” She reached out and scratched Pirate, who began a deep rumble and leaped to her lap.

  “So, did you get anywhere tonight, before your kid stomped out?” He figured she needed to tell him.

  Kathleen gave him a look that echoed the cat’s, curious and doubtful. “You don’t even know Emma. You can’t possibly want to hear every gory detail.”

  He was actually looking forward to meeting the infamous Emma. He had a feeling she was going to turn out to be a lot like her beautiful, stubborn, smart mom.

  On the spot now, Logan shrugged and said, “She’s important to you.”

  Kathleen’s eyes suddenly brimmed with tears and she dashed at them. “Damn!” she muttered. “Every little thing sets me off.”

  Feeling useless, Logan said, “Including me. I’m sorry.”

  “No! You say the nicest things. Nobody…” She stopped. “It’s been a long time…” Letting out a huff of breath, she tried to laugh. “Oh, dear. That sounds pathetic.”