Owen's Daughter

by Jo-Ann Mapson

  “I respect that,” she said. But it still bothered her. “Why now? Why not years ago when the doctors said—”

  His nostrils flared and Margaret knew she’d asked too many questions.

  He set his fork down. “I didn’t tell you because what if it didn’t work? If I’d gotten your hopes up, and then wrecked them all over again, I wouldn’t be able to take it.”

  She could see the tears in his eyes. “I see. I’m sorry for pecking at you, Peter. Everything turned out fine. Let’s not argue while you’re here, okay?”

  There were a million things she wanted to say, but she chose to be quiet rather than be honest and get her head bitten off.

  Peter sniffled and the tears retreated. “That first night, I couldn’t bear to go to sleep. I was up until four a.m. on iTunes, listening to all the music I missed. And eating potato chips, listening to the crunch.”

  She smiled. “I can imagine.”

  “Yeah, but who knows if it will last? That’s why I signed up for the Stanford medical trial for my right ear. I know, I know. It’s a crapshoot, but what do I have to lose, really?”

  Margaret set down her coffee cup and reached for the pot, to refill it. “What are you talking about, Stanford?” Had he told her already, and she’d forgotten? Was it the MS?

  “I told you last night.”

  “So tell me again.”

  “Stanford’s got a stem cell program trial coming up. They’re already using the treatment in South America. It’s amazing, Mom. They harvest cells from your forearm, where the hair grows. They tweak them in the lab, and get this—they regenerate a pluripotent hair cell for the inner ear. I’m on their list for my right ear. There’s too much damage for a cochlear implant, and while the tooth cap helps, this could work all on its own.”

  “It sounds thrilling. What was it like the first time you heard Bonnie’s voice?”

  Peter blotted his mouth with a napkin. He pushed his plate away and looked straight into his mother’s eyes. “Jeez, Mom. Just come out and ask, why don’t you?”

  Her cheeks flamed. “I didn’t mean to pressure you. But I noticed you weren’t wearing your wedding ring and I just wondered—”

  He folded his arms across his chest, never a good sign. Echo got to her feet and plunked her head into Peter’s lap, watching his face nervously. “You’re a fine one to talk. You don’t tell me everything, do you?”

  “What are you talking about? I—”

  He cut her off. “Are you sure you really want to know?”

  “Of course I do. I love you and I want you to be happy. You know that.”

  Peter made that scoffing noise he used to make when he was fifteen. Translated, it meant, You hopelessly lame parent, I wish you could hear yourself like I do. “You were against us getting married in the first place.”

  “Not against it, Peter. I just didn’t see what the hurry was.”

  He shook his head and sighed.

  “What?” she asked, dying to reach out and touch him, but knowing that with Peter, what felt right to her often turned out to be the wrong thing to him. “You can tell me anything. And if you don’t want to talk about it, I won’t bring it up again. Cross my heart.”

  He unfolded his arms and picked up the Waterford crystal salt shaker. “You were probably right. The thing is—” His voice broke, and he set down the shaker and stopped speaking. He went straight back to signing. Arguments. Jobs. Children.

  Margaret signed back, feeling that pit in her stomach widen. Sorry. Prying. I’ll shut up.

  “Mom,” he said, “it’s not your fault. Marriages break up for all kinds of reasons.”

  “What do you mean, break up?” This had gone further than she thought. “Are you contemplating divorce?”

  “Actually, it’s already under way.”

  “No counseling?”

  He picked up the salt shaker again and turned it so that the sun reflected through the crystal, throwing rainbows across the yellow kitchen. “Too late for that. But don’t worry, we’re totally amicable. It’s just a matter of signing papers. It will be over before you know it.”

  She couldn’t help thinking of her mother’s diamond ring she’d given to Bonnie. It was the closest thing she had to a family heirloom. Surely Bonnie would return it. “What if you separate for a while?”

  He laughed and set down the shaker and looked out the window. There was a pine siskin in the tree outside, complaining that the feeder was empty. “Mom, she moved to Chicago. How much more separated could we be?”

  “I knew she got offered that great job with Native America Calling, but I thought it was temporary.”

  “This is why I didn’t tell you! I knew you’d act just like this.”

  “Like what? Concerned for my son?”

  He frowned, and she caught a glimpse of the burden he was carrying. “There’s a big deaf community in Chicago, and an even larger Native community.”

  “But you teach at Gallaudet. Surely there are a few Native students there for her to make friends with.”

  Peter sighed. “Mom, it’s kind of like it was with her reservation family. I’m welcome there, but I’m always going to be an outsider.”

  “But isn’t that what marriage is about? You take vows and form a bond and you become each other’s family?”

  Echo whined again, and Peter stopped talking long enough to reassure her with more neck scratches.

  “Surely she still loves you.”

  He winced. “Not anymore.”

  “I don’t understand. What changed?”

  “Look. Bonnie has a full-blood Creek boyfriend. He was also born deaf. Apparently she has had other boyfriends I didn’t find out about until recently. Other couples might be able to repair that kind of damage, but here’s the deal, Mom. She doesn’t want to.”

  “But you love her.”

  “Of course I still love her! I would have done anything for her!” He set down the salt shaker so hard that the white grains inside jumped.

  “Peter, I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, I was planning out when and how to break the news to you, but since you know, I guess I’ll just lay the rest on you now. I’m taking a leave from teaching. Could I move home until I get settled?”

  Margaret was still processing the multiple boyfriends information. She guessed this was why she hadn’t received a thank-you note from Bonnie for her birthday present. Frankly, Bonnie wasn’t one for etiquette, which at first Margaret chalked up to cultural differences. Peter had written all their wedding thank-yous. Bonnie was a little spoiled, Margaret had confided in Nori, and Nori had said in that sarcastic way of hers, “Gee, ya think? She reminds me of those horrible children on Toddlers & Tiaras.” There were times Margaret watched Peter and Bonnie together and thought, Good Lord, she orders him around like he’s her servant. Is that how marriage is supposed to be? Because Margaret sure didn’t know. When she’d asked Bonnie to help her do something, Bonnie always refused, saying she was too tired. When they shopped, however, she had no problem at all asking for nice clothes or expensive belts to cinch in her already tiny waist.

  “You’re always welcome here, Peter. Do you need an attorney?”

  “No, she got one. All I have to do is sign papers.”

  Margaret tried to hold her tongue but couldn’t. “Now you listen to me,” she said. “I’m your mother and I admit I’m prejudiced, but I have to tell you, I can’t think of a single divorce in history that went smoothly. It’s either a financial nightmare or an emotional nightmare, often both. Blame always rears its ugly head, and anger. Sometimes an angry spouse decides that money makes a nice Band-Aid.”

  He snorted. “Bonnie’s not like that.”

  She gave him her gimlet eye. “Even if all you have an attorney do is check over the documents, that is money well spent.”

  “What if I don’t have any money to pay one?”

  “What about your job at the university? Isn’t legal aid part of your benefits package?”

/>   He pointed to his ears. “This has caused some problems. I was a term professor. The reason I’m taking a leave is because they didn’t renew my contract. So I’m officially looking for work elsewhere.”

  Oh, my God. All those years he’d put in at Gallaudet. “Santa Fe’s a rough job market in the best of times,” she told him.

  “I have an interview at Riverwall.”

  That was the deaf high school Peter himself had attended. “Riverwall? I doubt it has the university pay scale.”

  “Mom, you think I don’t know that?”

  “Of course not. I was just thinking out loud. I apologize. But what if you don’t find anything here?”

  “Then I’ll go somewhere else.”

  “Such as?”

  “Jeez, could you be any more negative? I’ll move back to California. I’ll go to London and mooch off Aunt Nori. There you go, plans B galore. Happy?” He stood up and pushed his chair in. It squeaked painfully across the floor. The dog inched farther under the table.

  Margaret put her head in her hands and sighed, then looked up. “Peter, stop it. Since you’re an adult, and so am I, we’ll conduct ourselves like adults. You can stay here for as long as you need to. I think the guesthouse would suit you better than the guest room, but you’ll have to clean it out—it’s filled with boxes. And there’s one condition. I insist my attorney help with the divorce. No, don’t look at me like that. Aunt Ellie left me some money, so I can pay for it. You need counsel.”

  “Fine. Now can we talk about something else? Because I’m kind of done talking about me.”

  She felt ready to pop, she had so many questions. How was a mother supposed to parent an adult son? “Of course,” she said. “After breakfast, would you like to go shopping? I couldn’t help but notice you need some new clothes, and if you’re going to stay here”—she smiled and tried hard to mean it—“then we should shop for a new mattress. That pullout couch in my studio is old and lumpy.”

  “No argument there,” he said, rubbing his neck. “After my shower, though.”

  He waited until she stood up from the table and hugged her, kissing her cheek. He signed, I love you, and then he gathered his dishes and carried them to the sink. Margaret watched him wash them, using actual dishwashing soap, versus rinsing off the worst and leaving them for her the way he usually did. He set them in the drainer to dry, threw away his napkin, and shut the cabinet that held the trash can. Echo followed his every step.

  From down the hall she heard the radio switch on. That was a first, too.

  “Will you stop looking at me like that?” Peter said when they stopped for coffee at the Starbucks across the street from the Plaza.

  “How am I looking at you?”

  “Like I’m some poor rejected waif who’s lost his way.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Yes, you are, Mom.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. I’m having a hard time with all this.” What she didn’t say was, Thank goodness you didn’t have children.

  “I’m grateful that she ended it. Why stay married to someone who cheats on you? Life’s too short for that. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  You mean like I stayed with your dad, Margaret said to herself, wondering if that was the subtext of Peter’s words. Parents were supposed to set an example. She had held on to hope they could work things out until Ray got that girl pregnant, hadn’t she? But she also never married again, and maybe Peter thought his life was going to turn out like hers.

  She thought all those things in the time it takes to lift a grande latte to her lips, sip, burn her tongue, and set the cup down. She’d ordered Peter a venti mocha, herself the latte, and a grande chai, suspended. “What’s that for?” Peter said as they sat at the table.

  “The guy playing guitar outside, or any other homeless person who asks for it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Chai has the most nutrients.” At Peter’s expression, she said, “Look, sometimes I do this, okay?”

  “Why?”

  “It makes me feel better, all right?”

  “Mom, for crying out loud, the dude with the guitar probably lives in an apartment with a fifty-inch flat-screen.”

  “I don’t care. He’s somebody’s son and it’s cold today.”

  “Yeah, and he could always sell his guitar to buy his own coffee and get a job.”

  She wanted to ask, When did you get so bitter? When had he gone from a smiling young man with enthusiasm in every step to this? When Bonnie cheated on him, that’s when. Instead of plying Peter with more questions, Margaret walked around the Plaza with him. Of course he wanted to stay there all day, listening to the musicians on the stage, a Spanish group trying to sound like Los Lobos, maybe back when they practiced in garages and performed at parties for free. Music had been a huge part of Peter’s life before he lost his hearing. It made perfect sense that he had a lot of catching up to do, so she sat with him and tried to reconcile everything he’d told her, obsessing a little over her mother’s ring. Could she ask for it back? Or was it better to let it go? It was one of two things she had of her mother’s, the other being a small Van Briggle flower vase, packed away since the move.

  Maybe the divorce was a good thing. Peter’s life would be wide open in a way it hadn’t been since he was a child. Bonnie had always gotten her way. Had that held him back? A simple divorce, he’d said. He has no idea what he’s in for, she thought. They may own nothing but furniture and clothing and have their outstanding student loans, but Peter doesn’t see things the way someone who’s been through it does, she told herself. Beneficiaries to life insurance policies. Cobra medical insurance coverage from the college. Alimony. The word struck fear into her heart. For all he knew, Bonnie was preparing to whale on him for everything wrong with her life, punishing him for having the surgery. She might even be considering a move back to the reservation. The two of them in the same state. How would that work?

  “I always thought you wanted children,” she blurted out between songs, while the musicians took a short break.

  Peter looked straight ahead. “I did. I still do.”

  “And Bonnie?”

  “She hemmed and hawed and finally I confronted her. She told me she did want kids—just not with me.”

  The mother in Margaret was instantly livid. “Why not?”

  “Calm down.”

  “I’m calm.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re freaking out.”

  Her heart beat like hammers in her chest. “All right, I’m calming down.”

  “This might sound crazy to you, Mom, but I understand where she’s coming from. If Bonnie has a child, she wants it to be born deaf, you know, into her culture. I don’t have the gene that carries deafness. Because I can’t guarantee a deaf child, she doesn’t want children with me.”

  They sat and listened to the music for another half an hour or so, though Margaret couldn’t tell what the band played. She was boiling with rage and sorrow and was, most of all, stunned that the girl Peter loved had hurt her son in such a cruel and selfish way. I want Mother’s ring back, she told herself. I want those beautiful earrings I splurged on. A coin-shaped place in her heart burned so hot over the stupid earrings she’d given Bonnie. She wanted to snatch them out of her ears. Margaret didn’t want to wear them—mauve glass trumpet lilies were much too frilly for her, but not on Bonnie, who had sloe-brown eyes and thick black straight hair Margaret coveted. She didn’t want someone who’d been unfaithful to her son to have any beauty in her life. She tried to take the long view, the old the-worst-people-need-our-compassion point of view, but maybe she just wasn’t that generous a person. All she could see was the head of a hammer coming down onto the glass earrings. I want back every kind word I ever gave that girl. How dare she hurt my son?

  She looked around at the people wandering the shops. They were mainly tourists, because few people who lived in Santa Fe could afford to actually shop here. She herself visited Mimosa and Cowboys and Indians in order t
o get ideas for clothes, and then she shopped at Santa Fe Fabrics, the store next door to Dulce, a coffee and pastry place she loved. She sewed clothes up on her old Singer machine.

  The sun had come out for a few hours. The trees were budding. Actual leaves were unfolding. But the still chilly afternoon wind whistled through the Plaza, causing her to tighten her scarf. Spring is a fickle lover, she thought, and turned up the collar on her coat. Nothing is ever guaranteed. She knew that as well as anybody. But somehow when it comes to your kids, that sort of acceptance goes out the window.

  When the music ended, Peter said, “Mom? Would you mind if I dropped you back at home, and went to see my horse?”

  Just like when he was fifteen, she thought. Embarrassed to be seen with his mother. “Sounds great,” she said, smiling, handing him the keys to her old Land Cruiser. “What do you want for dinner?”

  “Anything,” he said.

  “Come on. Let me cook for you. What are you craving?”

  “How about your eggplant lasagna? I haven’t had that since the last time I saw you.”

  Margaret was surprised. “I wrote out all your favorite recipes and gave them to Bonnie before you got married. I kind of thought Bonnie had learned how to make it.”

  “I did the cooking. Hey, I’ll cook for you, too. You know, earn my keep while I’m here. I promise.”

  Margaret bit her tongue as they walked to the parking garage. He beeped open the car doors and she slid into the passenger seat, reaching for the seat belt, her right hand suddenly weak and causing her a moment of despair. She pulled at the strap with her left hand and managed to get it latched.

  It was a perfect time to bring up the MS, but she couldn’t bring herself to spoil his smile and the way he was singing along to the radio.

  While Peter was at the stable, Margaret went onto Craigslist to look for a bed. The price of mattresses in local stores was insane, and maybe a used one would be in good enough shape. However, she accidentally clicked on employment instead of furniture, and what popped up first was Joe’s ad.

  Reach for the Sky, a handicapped horseback-riding program, is seeking to hire a full-time barn manager. You will tend two dozen horses, be responsible for feeding twice daily, mucking stalls, grooming, arranging veterinary care, and shoeing. A background in social work, education, or related fields is a plus, as is being bilingual. Candidate must have a familiarity with horses. Experience working with youth, the handicapped, or challenged is desirable. A strong sense of ethics, and an understanding of the at-risk population we serve, is essential.