The Perfect Mom

by Janice Kay Johnson

  He had his foot on the first step when the doorbell rang.

  Logan hated the lurch of hope that he tried to bury under irritation. What now?

  He took a minute to wipe his face with a dish towel, then flipped on the porch light and opened the door. Kathleen was on the doorstep, hunched inside a parka that had probably been designed for Mount Everest.

  The hope solidified, then crystallized into a substance like granite, with shimmery flecks of longing encased in something a hell of a lot harder.

  Anger.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  She looked almost plain when she met his eyes. “May I come in?”

  Trust her to put it that way: may I, not can I? Well-bred. Prissy.

  Without a word, he backed up. She stepped in, hesitated, then peeled off her parka. When he didn’t offer to take it, she hung it over the doorknob.

  “Maybe I’ll have another drink.” He started toward the kitchen.

  Following, she watched him take down the bottle of Scotch.

  “Want some?” he asked.

  “No, thank you. I have to drive home.”

  He never liked to think of her driving late at night in that heap of junk she called a car.

  Logan had lifted the bottle to pour. Now he set it down. Maybe he should follow her to be sure she got back safely.

  The alcohol was hitting him, and he was suddenly very tired. He wanted a hot shower and bed, not more turmoil.

  “Why are you here?” he asked bluntly.

  “So that I could tell you I’m sorry for what I said the other day. I didn’t mean it. I wouldn’t have introduced you to Emma if I hadn’t hoped you’d become part of our lives.”

  “Uh-uh.” He picked up the shot glass, weighed it in his hand. “But that part didn’t include my taking your daughter’s side against you.”

  Strain showed on her face, in the fine lines around her eyes. “It wasn’t that.”

  “Then what was it?”

  “I was jealous.” She said it so softly, he wasn’t sure he’d heard right.

  “What?”

  She glared at him. “I was jealous! All right?”

  Logan shook his head in bafflement. “Why would you be jealous? I don’t get it.”

  Kathleen backed up a step, hugging herself. Distress radiated from her. “Because everything I do is wrong! But, you… You come along, she decides you’re cool, and before I know it she’s hanging out with you when you come over instead of sulking in her room, confiding in you, getting you to talk to me.”

  Maybe the Scotch had slowed his thinking. “You wanted her to hate me?”

  “No!” she cried. “I wanted her to…accept you. I’m glad she likes you. It’s just that the ease with which you two get along makes me feel inadequate.” She laughed, although it didn’t come out quite right. “Even more inadequate.”

  “But…you’re different,” he said.

  “Sure I am.” She did smile, but it twisted. “I’m her evil mother.”

  “Not evil. But you are her mother. She loves you. She wants to be like you, but she’s mad at you.” In the face of Kathleen’s uncomprehending stare, he struggled to explain. “I’m just a sympathetic ear. Emma doesn’t really feel anything for me. For you…there’s this simmering pot of emotions. You see? She can’t talk to you because she feels so much she doesn’t even understand. But me? I’m nothing to her.” He shrugged. “Why would you be jealous of that?”

  She looked smaller than usual, washed out, vulnerable instead of confident and vibrant.

  “Because you know how to talk to her. I should but I don’t.”

  “How?” Logan echoed. “There’s no ‘how.’ You say what you mean, and she reacts. She’ll work all this out, Kathleen. Think back to when you were sixteen. What did you do when your parents tried to talk to you?”

  She let out a shaky laugh. “Slam my bedroom door?”

  Logan waited.

  “Yes. Okay.” Tears brimmed in her eyes. “You’re right. It was dumb of me. But right away I could see her responding to you. I have tried so hard…” She swallowed, sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I was an idiot. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She wavered, confused. He was supposed to have swept her into his arms and said, I understand.

  “Will you…forgive me?”

  “Of course I will.”

  “Then…”

  His voice grated. “You weren’t very happy to see me tonight.”

  Her eyes dilated. “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t give me that B.S.,” he said harshly. “I saw your face. You were wishing me anywhere but there.”

  “It…wasn’t a good moment.”

  Unrelenting, he said, “Because you didn’t want to introduce me as your lover.”

  Her chin came up. “We hadn’t spoken in three days. I didn’t know where we stood! How was I supposed to introduce you?”

  “But that wasn’t it, was it?” He watched her face for the slightest betraying reaction. “What if I’d been a well-dressed attorney or doctor? I’m guessing you’d have been more eager to parade me.”

  She hid her wince, but not well enough. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Twice before in his life he had felt pain as crushing. Once, when he understood that his mother was ditching him, and the night when the call came.

  Mr. Carr? I regret to tell you that your wife is dead.

  This was more like the first time, because shame twisted inside it, born of his belief that he wasn’t good enough. Not smart enough, not handsome enough, not something. As an adult, he’d come to understand that his mother’s problems were her own, and had nothing to do with him. He’d been a kid like any other kid. He’d done nothing to make her reject him. But now, for the second time in his life, he’d been found wanting.

  It was all he could do to stay on his feet.

  “I’m too much like your roots, aren’t I?” Even his tongue felt clumsy. “Your father and I’d probably hit it off. We’d recognize each other.”

  “No! No, it’s not…” She was shaking her head hard.

  “Was this some kind of sick thing?” he asked cruelly. “Were you looking for your daddy in me?”

  Kathleen stared at him, stunned. “Why are you being like this?”

  “I don’t like being used.”

  Her voice quavered. “I love you.”

  He should feel something besides this raging pain. The words should have meaning.

  “Yeah? Here’s the thing. I don’t believe you.”

  Her eyes closed briefly. “What can I say to convince you?”

  “I don’t know.” His fingers curled around the shot glass as if he were trying to crush it. “I don’t know if you can.”

  She whispered. “You don’t…want me?”

  “Want you?” Logan didn’t even recognize that harsh laugh. “Sure I do. Is that what this is about?”

  Kathleen seemed to shrink. “What do you mean?”

  He tossed the shot glass onto the counter where it landed with a clunk, and went to her. When he wrapped his hand around her nape, he felt as if high tension wires were zinging under his palm. “Is this what you’re here for?” he asked, just before he bent his head.

  He swallowed her small, startled cry in a kiss that was erotic, demanding, even angry. Did he want her? What did she think?

  He wanted her so bad he was sick with it. He fell asleep at night thinking of her, woke up in the morning with dream images of her slipping from his grasp. He’d thought, with her, that magic had sparked. But if all she’d wanted was to screw him, he could do that, too.

  She kissed him back, seemingly helpless to do anything else. Once he lifted his head and saw the track of tears down pale cheeks. Stiffening, despising himself, Logan started to pull back. Kathleen rose on tiptoe and sought his mouth again, and he was lost.

  They made it to his bed, where he shoved covers aside to lay her down on smooth sheets. He was momentarily jolted by the s
ight of his filthy hand gripping her creamy breast, but not enough to stop. The hunger driving him was too great. His anger had died, replaced by the yawning awareness that this would be the last time he would ever touch her, have her.

  She moaned when his mouth replaced his hand and he suckled hard. The bow of her back as she arched up was exquisite, her waist so slender, her vertebrae under his questing fingers so delicate. Logan felt like a huge, clumsy brute in possession of a precious porcelain figurine, knowing that his hands were too oafish to hold it safely.

  Hungry for her, he stripped her clothes off, exposing slender white limbs and curvy hips and breasts. Logan dispatched his own dirty working clothes and planted a knee between her thighs.

  “You know I want you. What about you, Kathleen? Do you want me, even if you wish you didn’t?” he asked, gripping her buttocks in his hands and lifting her hips to receive him.

  Her vivid blue eyes sparkled with fresh tears, but her legs parted and she gasped when the blunt tip of his penis probed. “No,” she whispered. “I want you.”

  Not, I love you. Or, That’s not true, I have never wished any such thing. Just, I want you. The best she could do.

  And yet, he couldn’t stop. She was his heart’s desire, and he could make love to her one last time. Logan groaned and thrust, burying himself in her.

  He had little control, unable to set a deliberate pace and wait for her to soften, for her inner muscles to quiver in reaction. He wanted her. To claim her. To move against her and in her and around her so powerfully, she wouldn’t forget. So that she would always have a fleeting memory of him and his callused hands, even as she made love with whatever rich man she someday chose.

  He was almost shocked to feel her spasm around him, to hear her call his name. He plunged into her again, and again, and couldn’t hold back his own explosive release.

  As Logan rolled off her to avoid crushing her with his weight, he heard her whispered, “I love you,” and he could have wept.

  They lay side by side, arms and legs still entangled, both breathing hard, their sweat cooling. He couldn’t bear to look at her, to let her see how little pride he had left. Finally he flipped onto his back and stared at the ceiling.

  “I think you’d better go home.”

  This cry was a keen of pain. She scrambled off the bed and snatched at her clothes, fleeing into the bathroom. Water ran, the toilet flushed, and finally she came back out.

  Agony clawing his chest, he turned his head to see her, hair disheveled, face splashed clean but blotchy and puffy from old and new tears. Her shirt was buttoned wrong, so that one tail hung lower than the other.

  “Why did you do this?” She gestured at the bed, her voice husky. “You must hate me, and you let me bare myself like this. Do you know how ashamed I feel?”

  He just looked at her, and she flushed, remembering—he hoped—her own embarrassment at having to introduce him to that son-of-a-bitch Monroe. The shame she had made him feel.

  With a muffled sob, Kathleen ran, her feet a clatter in the hall. The front door opened and slammed, with finality that hit him like an bolt of electricity, jerking his body.

  She was gone.

  EMMA HARDLY RECOGNIZED her own mother the next morning. Emma’s school bus came half an hour before Mom had to leave for work, so Emma always got up first. Usually, the second Mom walked into the kitchen, her gaze would go to Emma’s bowl or plate. Emma would see her calculating the caloric and nutritional value of her breakfast, how much she might have already eaten, how much she would undoubtedly leave. Then she’d say something bright and fake, like, “Gee, that toast smells good! Maybe I’ll have that, too.”

  This morning, Mom walked into the kitchen like a zombie. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. Each step was mechanical, slow, as if she had to think, Move the left foot. Move the right foot. Her hair was a rat’s nest. Hadn’t she even looked in the mirror yet? Her face looked puffy, the skin under her eyes bruised, and her eyes themselves were unfocused.

  “Mom?” Emma said uncertainly.

  Her mother’s gait checked. Her head turned slowly, as if with an effort. “Yes?” she asked without interest.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” She shuffled on to the counter.

  Coffee was brewing, started last night on a timer. Mom looked as if she really, really needed a cup.

  “Are you sick?”

  “No.”

  “You look…” Emma hesitated. Awful might be mean to say, but was true. “Um…tired.”

  “Didn’t sleep much.”

  “Oh. Are you going to work?”

  She didn’t even summon her usual note of impatience or irritation that implied Emma was such a child, she didn’t understand an adult’s responsibilities. “Yes.”

  She lifted the pot and poured, missing the cup and splashing hot coffee on the counter and her bathrobe. She muttered, adjusted the angle, then smacked the coffeepot back down on the burner. She dumped a huge spoonful of sugar in it, then shuffled back toward the table without even wiping up the spill.

  Alarmed, Emma asked, “Are you sure it’s a good idea?”

  “I can’t afford to stay home,” Mom said dully.

  On a pang of guilt, Emma said, “Because of me, I suppose.”

  Mom’s gaze wandered her way, as if she were some near stranger sitting at the breakfast table. “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing!” Emma felt suddenly breathless, anxious. “I’ve got to get ready.”

  She hadn’t eaten much of her cereal. Mom didn’t even notice. Which should have relieved her, but instead scared her.

  What had happened? Had she and Dad had a fight? But she’d come upstairs after he left and sat on the edge of Emma’s bed.

  “He says he’s going to be calling you,” she’d said. “Whether you want to talk to him or see him is entirely up to you. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Emma had sat cross-legged, clutching her pillow on her lap. “Did he tell you what I said?”

  “I think you stung him a little bit.” Mom smiled. “If he thought he could stroll back into your life without hearing a few home truths, then he’s a bigger idiot than I gave him credit for.”

  Now, as Emma brushed her teeth and then stuffed her binder and textbooks in her bag, she thought in confusion, Mom was okay then.

  She’d left Emma’s room, and Emma had heard voices from downstairs. Mom talking to Helen or Jo. She didn’t think the phone had rung or anything.

  So what had happened?

  Of course, it was raining again today. Emma trudged to the corner where the bus came, and stood under a big tree that had leafed out for spring and kept all but some drips off her.

  Maybe nothing happened. Maybe Mom just had insomnia, or a migraine, or an upset stomach.

  The bus rumbled up, creaked to a stop, then belched as the door opened. With a shrug, Emma got on it. Mom would be okay later.

  That afternoon, Emma didn’t see her mother when she first got home from work. As soon as Ginny’s bus dropped her, she and Jo started playing War. Emma went to her room to do homework. Not until Helen called, “Dinner time!” did she close her math book and go downstairs.

  Mom was in the kitchen, still dressed for work except she’d changed her shoes for some fluffy slippers.

  “Hi,” Emma said.

  Mom turned. She’d put on makeup and stuff, so the blue circles under her eyes weren’t as obvious, but she still looked really tired. And, Emma realized, really mad.

  “I got a call from the attendance office. They tell me you skipped a class yesterday.”

  “Um…”

  “Don’t bother lying. I called Mr. Wellborn. He said you weren’t there.”

  “I was upset about Dad coming.” She lifted her chin. “So I left school a little early. Is it that big a deal?”

  “You know it’s a big deal. Did you come home?”

  Emma sneaked a glance toward Ginny, who already sat at the table. Had she ratted?

&nbs
p; Mom noticed, and her eyes narrowed. “Where did you go?”

  “Just…around!”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “I went downtown. I looked in store windows. That’s all!”

  Mom’s lips thinned. “I’m disappointed in you.”

  Emma’s eyes filled with tears. “Aren’t you always?” Mad at herself, she raced for the stairs.

  Mom came right after her. “Don’t try to evade this conversation! You knew how I’d feel about you cutting classes.”

  Halfway up the stairs, Emma turned. “One class!” she cried. “One! That’s all. I never do stuff like that!”

  Mom’s expression altered. She suddenly looked very tired and very sad. “No. I know you don’t.” She sighed. “Come and eat dinner, Emma.”

  “Is that an order?”

  “I’m asking…”

  Burning with resentment, Emma said, “I don’t feel like eating anymore.”

  Mom flinched. “Please don’t use that, of all things, as a weapon.”

  What was she supposed to use? Filled with a sense of power, Emma said, “I can’t eat when I’m upset.”

  Face pale, Mom gripped the newel post. “Please come to the table.”

  “I told you! I’m not hungry!” Emma yelled, and hurried up to her room.

  She flung herself on to her bed, battling a sense of guilt that took the form of her therapist’s face. Sharon was shaking her head in disapproval. They’d talked endlessly about why Emma used food as a way to have control over a corner of her world, as if it were castle walls not even her parents could storm.

  But how could she just sit down and eat dinner, after her mother was, like, screaming at her?

  Her stomach rumbled and she ignored it. She hated being hungry. It was as if she had lost control of her own body. She used to feel so strong and so pure, like she was rising above the mean demands of her physical self. Emma had read once about Northwest Coast Indian shamans, who fasted until they thought the light could shine through them. Sometimes she’d felt that way, like clear glass that didn’t cast a shadow.