Letting Go

by Pamela Morsi

  “Oh, no,” Jet assured her. “It was ordinary, but I fixed it. I turned it lucky just for you, Mama.”

  “You think I need some luck?”

  The question puzzled Jet. “Doesn’t everybody?” she asked.

  Amber didn’t answer. She held the coin in her hand for a long moment before looking up at her daughter again.

  “Thank you, sweetie,” she said. “I’m lucky just to have a little girl like you.”

  Jet laughed. “That’s not lucky at all, Mama. If I wasn’t your little girl, whose would I be?”

  Amber opened her arms and Jet flew into them to get a hug.

  Over the child’s head she eyed Ellen with both accusation and amusement.

  Ellen shouldn’t have felt any confusion. She wanted Jet to have time with her mother. And she wanted Amber to make wonderful memories of her daughter’s childhood. She and Amber weren’t in competition for Jet’s love. The little girl had more than enough for both of them. Ellen knew that. But somehow, over time, her relationship with Amber had become so strained that every interaction had the potential for conflict.

  “I suppose I’ll leave you short-order cooks to your culinary creations,” she said.

  “Thanks,” Amber said.

  The batter had been a little runny, affording some very unusual-shaped pancakes more reminiscent of a Rorschach test than an all-American breakfast. They also varied in color from pale doughy beige to crisp black. But the experience had been entertaining. Jet’s apron was dusted with flour and her hands were sticky with syrup.

  “You get washed up and I’ll fill the dishwasher,” Amber told her daughter.

  They had been let alone for their cooking experiment. The little house was not really big enough for three grown women and a child to get away from each other. The fact that both her mother and Wilma had managed to keep their distance must have been planned. That was good and bad. Amber wanted time alone with her daughter, but she certainly didn’t want the company of her own thoughts. Not today.

  Ellen was cleaning the bathroom as if she intended to practice surgery there later. The reek of bleach overrode the more pleasant odors of cooking.

  Wilma had come in, surveyed the activities in the kitchen and returned to the front porch.

  Amber’s time alone with Jet was precious. It wasn’t as if she avoided the child, she was simply busy. She slept late and then had to hurry to work. Weekends were high commission days, so she almost always worked. And with two doting grandmothers at her constant beck and call, Jet never wanted for attention.

  It would be different, of course, once she moved out. Then she’d have to schedule specific times to visit and they’d have planned activities. It could work out all right, she assured herself. It could actually work out better.

  Jet hurried back into the kitchen. Her hands and face were clean and she was ready to help. Amber gave her a sponge and had her wipe down the counters. She expected to have to re-do them herself and was surprised at Jet’s determination to do it right and to do it herself.

  “Great job!” Amber’s comment.

  “I help Gramma and Wil-ma all the time,” Jet said. “I’m a good helper.”

  “Of course, you are.”

  “But I like helping you best,” Jet said. “’Cause you’re Mama.”

  Amber was taking that in. All the love in the world was gleaming in her child’s eyes and that gaze was directed squarely at her. It was truly awesome, in the fullest sense of that word.

  A light tapping on the door frame interrupted.

  Amber turned to see Brent standing there.

  Jet squealed and went running toward him.

  She flew into his arms and he lifted her up to the ceiling. She was giggling.

  “Mama and me made pancakes,” she told him. “They were scrunch-us.”

  “Scrumptious, huh. And I missed them.”

  “You missed ’em.”

  He glanced over at Amber. “I didn’t even know your mother could cook,” he said.

  “Of course I can cook. Everybody can cook.”

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “That’s why he takes me out to lunch,” Jet said. “Are we going to lunch today?”

  “I thought you just had pancakes?”

  “I did,” she said. “But you didn’t.”

  “I actually have a better idea,” Brent said. “I wanted to take you and your mother on an outing.”

  “An outing!” Jet looked toward her mother, eyes wide in excitement. “He wants to take us on an outing.” She turned back to Brent. “What’s an outing?”

  “It’s just a little afternoon trip,” Brent said. “A little, casual afternoon trip. No big deal, no big meaning to it.”

  The last was said for Amber’s benefit. He needn’t have bothered. Amber had no intention of going anywhere with him.

  “I have to work this afternoon,” she said.

  “What time do you have to be at work?”

  “Three o’clock.”

  “We have time to hang out, see some things,” he assured her. “We can drop you off. It’ll save you the time of the bus ride.”

  “I don’t know…” Amber hesitated.

  “Oh, please, Mama,” Jet said. “We want you to go with us. Where are we going?”

  “I thought we’d go to the McNay,” Brent said.

  That sounded great to Jet.

  “We’re going to the McNay!”

  Amber was skeptical, uncertain. “You want to take a three-year-old to an art museum?”

  “I’m three and a half,” Jet pointed out. “And my birthday’s coming up.”

  Brent shrugged, obviously not seeing a problem. “You’re never too young for art. Isn’t that the first thing people do with babies, show them pictures to look at.”

  Amber wasn’t sure if it was quite the same thing.

  “We won’t be there long,” he assured her. “As soon as you, or Jet, get tired of it, we’ll leave.”

  “Please, Mama,” Jet entreated. “Please go with us.”

  It almost seemed silly not to.

  “I guess it wouldn’t kill me,” Amber said.

  “Yeah!” Jet cheered and clapped.

  In a few minutes, Amber found herself in the passenger seat of the Tahoe. Jet got herself into the fancy booster car seat in the back.

  “You have a car seat?” Amber was astounded.

  “I bought it for Jet, ’cause she’s always hanging out with me these days,” he answered. “And we want to keep her very safe.”

  The latter was directed to the little girl who nodded solemnly as she expertly buckled herself in.

  “Besides,” he added, grinning. “It’s a real chick magnet.”

  “Yeah, I bet,” Amber responded.

  The drive up New Braunfels Avenue was short and virtually traffic free. Jet sang the entire way, alternating the theme from Between the Lions and something Wilma had taught her about a fifth ace and a woman in scarlet.

  Brent shared a secret smile with Amber, but she was immediately on-guard. She didn’t want to share anything with him.

  “Do you come here much these days?” he asked her.

  Her eyes narrowed. “I think the last time was when I was in high school,” she answered. “I’m poor, do you not get that yet? Poor people don’t go to art museums.” Her words were snide and defensive.

  “They don’t?” His tone was equally unpleasant. “I guess I always thought it was because they didn’t know anything about art, including whether or not they liked it. You, at least as I remember you, love art. There’s no reason why having your parents go bankrupt should change that.”

  “But it does,” Amber told him.

  “Well, don’t let it,” he said. “A free museum on the bus line. It sounds to me as if they want people to come. Money doesn’t figure into it at all.”

  “When you’re living hand to mouth your priorities are different,” Amber said.

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t understand,” Brent s
aid, facetiously. “Your priorities are different. My mistake. I thought you didn’t have any priorities at all.”

  “Screw you!”

  Jet had stopped singing.

  “Screw you,” she repeated.

  “Jet!” they scolded in unison.

  “Don’t talk like that in front of her,” Brent said.

  “Don’t interfere between me and my daughter,” Amber shot back.

  “Hey, haven’t you heard, it takes a village to raise a child.”

  “Well it doesn’t take the village idiot.”

  “It’s the village idiot that’s been spending more time with Jet this summer than her own mother,” he pointed out.

  “I didn’t know a damn thing about that.”

  “And why didn’t you know? You’re her mother. You’re supposed to be the one deciding where she goes and who she stays with,” he said.

  “When you have your own kids, then you can talk to me about it,” she said. “I’m doing what I think is best for my child.”

  “You can’t have it both ways, Amber. You can’t pawn her off on your mother and grandmother and then claim that you’re in charge.”

  “I didn’t pawn her off on anybody,” Amber claimed. “Unlike some people, I’m working at a real job.”

  “Why are you yelling at each other?” Jet asked from the back seat.

  “We’re not yelling!” they responded in unison.

  “It sounds like yelling,” Jet pointed out.

  The two adults looked at each other for a long moment before sharing an embarrassed laugh.

  “We were yelling,” Amber admitted to her.

  “Sorry,” Brent said. “We won’t do it anymore.”

  “Are you mad at each other?” she asked.

  “No, we’re just arguing,” Brent said. “Don’t you argue with your friends sometimes, when you’re really not mad at them?”

  Jet thought about that for a minute.

  “I don’t really have any friends but you and Wilma,” the little girl pointed out.

  “You have friends,” Amber insisted, hoping that it was true. “What about…what about your little friends in Sunday School.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jet agreed, nodding. “I have friends on Sundays.”

  It was clear from the child’s tone that she knew that there were a lot more days in the week.

  “When you go to preschool, you’ll have lots of friends,” Brent assured her.

  The child was excited about that. “When do I go to preschool, Mama?” she asked.

  Amber shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m sure you’ll go. I’ll…I’ll ask.”

  Ellen would undoubtedly know. She probably had Jet’s entire educational future sketched out. It was embarrassing for Amber to admit that she hadn’t even thought about it. Of course Jet would have to go to preschool. Did they do that at four? And then there was kindergarten. There was a public school in their neighborhood. She didn’t even know the name of it, much less its curriculum or reputation.

  The entrance to the McNay was a wide gate with impressive pillars. Much more imposing and grandiose than the Spanish-style stucco and tile mansion that housed the collection.

  Mrs. McNay, a much married and perennially single woman, had been a contemporary of Georgia O’Keefe and knew many of the artists of the Taos School—some of whom had visited her here and painted at her home. But when she began collecting, she didn’t limit herself to the genre of the southwest. Her private acquisitions included the works of Van Gogh, Degas, Renoir, as well as twelfth-century mosaics and modern sculptures. It added up to one of the finest smaller museum collections in the world. Upon her death, her art was put on display for the people of San Antonio and visitors to the city. There were no fees for entry to the museum or the grounds and no charge for parking.

  Brent pulled into the lot and they got out and started up along the stone walkway through the gardens.

  Jet was skipping ahead of them and laughing.

  “Look, Mama, look. They’ve got a waterfall,” she said.

  “It’s a fountain,” her mother corrected.

  “Can we go there? Can we go there?”

  “We’ll look at it later,” Brent told her. “Let’s go inside first and look at the pictures.”

  “Okay,” the little girl agreed eagerly.

  When they got to the door, Brent opened it for them and Amber cautioned her daughter. “This is a quiet place,” she said. “We don’t have to be silent, but we’ll try not to disturb the other people.”

  Jet nodded. “Like the liberry,” she said.

  Amber’s brow furrowed as Brent agreed.

  “You’ve taken her to the library?” Amber asked, astonished.

  “They’ve got books there,” her daughter explained.

  Inside the Spanish-style building with its stenciled beams and mosaic tiles, they walked from painting to painting. There was no grandiose discussion of the artist’s style or the underlying theme represented. Jet would announce that the picture was a man or a house or a lake. Her highest compliment was “I know him” or “I’ve been there.”

  The interior courtyard with its lily pond and fantasy elements was Jet’s favorite. Amber and Brent sat on a bench and watched her scamper through the foliage and carry on conversations with statues.

  Amber was feeling surprisingly relaxed, happy almost. Though she would have hated to admit it, she was glad that Brent had wanted to do this. She was glad that he’d included her.

  “Listen,” she said, by way of apology. “I’m sorry that I went off on you in the car. I know that Wilma needs your help and I appreciate the time you spend with Jet.”

  Brent nodded, accepting, before offering his own mea culpa. “Jet’s pretty cool,” he said. “I’ve got no business telling you how to raise your kid, ’cause you are obviously doing something right.”

  “She is great, isn’t she,” Amber said. “I don’t think I can take credit for it. It must be something innate in her. ’Cause no one in my whole family is any good at mothering. Wilma was distracted. Mom was smothering and I’m…I’m basically unavailable.”

  “I think you’re too hard on yourself,” Brent said. “And on Wilma and Ellen. Besides, dysfunctional parenting is kind of like the ‘in’ thing these days.”

  “Maybe so.” Amber gave him a small smile and deftly turned the conversation. “So how’s it going at the Justice Center?”

  “It’s interesting,” he admitted. “More than I thought, really, when I accepted the job.”

  “What are you doing, I mean, besides working and baby-sitting Jet?”

  He shrugged. “Seeing my old buds, doing some hiking, reading things that I like instead of things that are assigned.”

  Amber nodded.

  “I’ve actually been hanging out with my folks quite a bit,” he said. “My dad and I went to a movie together the other night. First time since I was about eleven, I think. I like them both better since they got a divorce.”

  “Your parents got a divorce?” Amber was flabbergasted.

  “Yeah,” Brent answered. “Almost two years ago now.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  He shrugged. “You’re not the only one for whom life has gone on,” he pointed out.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Amber said. “Are you okay with it?”

  “Sometimes,” he said. “Dad’s got a girlfriend. I like her, but I think it probably hurts my mother. So I’m like conflicted or something. I’m just trying to live through it, let it be what it is.”

  “You should just get over that,” Amber said. “Men are just guys. Though I guess I should have seen it coming. Your dad is like really good-looking. I could see him as a player. And your mom…I don’t know…some people are so narrow, it’s like they are walking sideways,” she said.

  Brent gave her a look.

  “What?” she asked him.

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s something or you wouldn’t be all
puffed up like that.”

  “Okay,” Brent answered. “I was just thinking how quick you are to sum up my parents. You’re more complicated than that. I’m more complicated than that. I think we’ve got to assume there’s more to them than the obvious.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess so.”

  “And I was wondering how you’d be if Ellen started bringing guys home,” he said.

  Amber gave an unladylike snort and shook her head. “She will never get over Dad. It just won’t happen.”

  “That’s the point of grieving,” Brent said. “Not that you get over the person, but that you get on with your life.”

  Jet came flying over to them, arms waving gracefully, face angelic.

  “Are you a bird?” Amber asked her.

  “I’m not a bird, I’m a fairy,” she said. “And this is my fairy garden.”

  “Pretty nice fairy garden,” Brent said. “Are you ready to go upstairs with me? There’s one more picture I wanted to show you.”

  She nodded. When Brent got to his feet she put her little hand in his.

  “Are you coming, Mama?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Amber said, rising to her feet.

  They took the outside stairway to the second level and walked along the balcony.

  “Are we going to see the Embreys?” Amber asked.

  Brent glanced back to look at her. “Do you like the Embreys?”

  “They’re my favorite,” she admitted.

  Brent grinned broadly. “Me, too, maybe we’ll stop there, but that’s not where we’re going.”

  Inside the upper gallery, Brent directed them toward the very first piece of art that Mrs. McNay had ever bought.

  The minute Jet caught sight of it, there was immediate recognition. “Look, Mama, it’s Boo!”

  Brent was grinning. “I knew she would like it,” he said.

  She obviously did.

  “I don’t get it,” Amber whispered.

  Brent looked at her puzzled. “It’s a Diego Rivera,” he said. “It’s called Portrait of Delfinia Flores.”

  “I know that,” Amber said. “Who’s Boo?”

  “You didn’t see Monsters, Inc.?”

  Amber shook her head.

  Brent tutted disapprovingly. “We’ve really got to get you out more,” he said.

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