by Donna Hill
"I'm sorry, Ma," she whispered over her tears as she held her mother's thin fingers between her own, pressing her head against the side of the bed, not even remembering walking fully into the bedroom.
Under the protection of dark, in the security of her own home and understanding that retaliation was not possible, she began to talk to her mother, pour out all of the things she'd wanted to say since she was a little girl about her best friend Lynn from sixth grade, when she got her first training bra, how much she hated going to gym because her uniform was too small and all the kids teased her, how she always tried to wait up for her at night just so she could smell her perfume. She told her about Uncle Frank and what he did to her, how his kind of love had damaged her spirit and she blamed herself. "All I've ever wanted was your love, Ma. Just wanted you to look at me and smile sometime, that's all, like maybe you were proud of me and that I wasn't a mistake. 'Cause that's how you always made me feel, Ma, like I'm a mistake. A night you wish you could take back. A night so bad you don't want to remember it or him. So you simply erase him from your mind, from your vocabulary, like he doesn't exist." Her body shook as she cried and talked and cried. "But that makes part of me not exist, either. A part that's been missing all my life. For thirty-two years only half of me has been living."
She wiped the tears away as quickly as they fell. She sighed heavily as she watched the slow rise and fall of her mother's chest. When she glanced toward the window, she was surprised to see that day was breaking over the horizon. She'd sat there all night. She'd cried and talked until there was nothing left to give.
Slowly, painfully, she stood. Her joints were stiff from sitting in the chair for so many hours. She glanced at the bedside clock. It was nearly six-thirty. If she went to bed now, she thought as she adjusted the blanket, she could get in a couple of good hours before her mother awoke and their day began. Leslie eased out of the room, leaving the door cracked.
Theresa opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling. A single tear trailed down her sunken cheek.
Gracie had agreed to come by for a couple of hours even though it was a Sunday so that Leslie could run a few errands outside of the house. It was going to cost Leslie more than she could reasonably afford at the moment, but she didn't have much of a choice. More and more lately, when she compared her bills to the money that came in, she thought about Celeste's offer to help.
She wasn't sure what it was that kept her turning down her friend's offer of help. She did know that part of it was her own stubborn pride, but more of it was the shackle of guilt. Every day when she helped her mother to the bathroom, to get dressed, to eat, it assuaged the guilt of that night. As much as the doctors told her that the aneurism that had devastated her mother had more than likely been brewing for months, it didn't take away Leslie's belief that it was her fault, and it was her responsibility alone to carry that shackle around.
She'd gotten her mother up, washed and dressed and she was comfortably camped out in the living room in her recliner watching television when Gracie arrived, right on time as usual.
"Thank you so much, Gracie," Leslie said as she put on her coat and grabbed her purse. "I promise I won't be more than a couple of hours. I need to run over to Seventh Avenue to pick up some material that I ordered and stop by the supermarket. We're low on everything."
"Of course." She waved her hand. "Take your time." She settled down next to Theresa. "And how is my favorite patient today?" She patted her hand.
"I'll see you both soon." She opened the door.
"Wait."
The one word was weak and raspy but infinitely clear. Leslie froze with her hand still on the doorknob. Slowly she turned around, her heart pounding.
Gracie was staring at Theresa, and Theresa was looking right at her daughter. Leslie watched the muscles in her throat move up and down. "Please..."
Leslie's purse slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor with a dull thud. "Ma?" She moved slowly toward her until she was kneeling at her side. She took her hand. "Ma?"
"I...I'm so sor-ry."
Leslie squeezed her mother's hand tighter. "It's okay, Ma. It's okay."
Theresa vigorously shook her head. "No," she managed to reply. "Need...to tell you." She waved Gracie away, so she got up and quietly left the room. Theresa turned to Leslie. In fits and starts, some words not making sense, she told Leslie how wrong she had been for so long. That she'd pushed her own insecurities onto Leslie in the hopes that she would be hardened enough not to succumb to the pain that she'd endured from her father.
Leslie held her breath when, for the first time in thirty-two years, her father's name was uttered from Theresa's lips.
"Thomas Manning. Tommy." Theresa's eyes clouded over as she went to a place in her heart that only she could see. "I loved him with...everything in me. I would have done anything for him. I was so happy to find out I was pregnant with you. I couldn't wait to tell him," she said, struggling and reaching for every word. "When I went to his apartment--" she paused "--he was there with someone else. His best friend, Lloyd." Her laugh sounded like a strangled bird. "He took me to the back room and told me he couldn't see me anymore. That he didn't love me, couldn't love any woman."
She frowned and shook her head slowly. "I told him I didn't understand what he was telling me. 'What are you saying?' I asked him. He told me how all his life he'd fought back his urges, tried to live a 'normal' life, but he couldn't do it anymore. He didn't want to hurt me."
Leslie's stomach began to churn. She felt sick.
Theresa focused on her daughter. "I never got to tell him about you. I was so hurt, so stunned, so humiliated. I couldn't tell anyone. Back then it was hard. So I moved away, found a new place to live so I wouldn't have to face anyone. I never looked back." She swallowed. "The only way I could get through my life was to pretend that a part of it didn't exist." She squeezed Leslie's hand. "I thought I was doing the right thing by you. I thought I was." She hung her head and began to weep.
Leslie struggled to gather her racing thoughts. Put the pieces together to what her mother had confessed. All these years, her mother had lived with the doubt of her own womanhood, a secret that had grown and festered through the years, eating them both alive, and like an infant nursing at her mother's breast, Leslie had been nurtured and fed on that fear, doubt and shame.
She wanted to blame her, but she couldn't. How could she, when her mother was just as much a victim of deceit as she had been.
Maybe now, after all these years, after all the hurt and harsh words, they could start at a new place. With trepidation she gently rested her head on her mother's lap, and her heart nearly burst from her chest when she felt the gentle touch that she'd so longed for, stroke her hair.
"I...love...you," Theresa whispered.
"I love you, too, Ma."
Gracie stood in the doorway, took her coat from the hook and quietly slipped out, thinking that as soon as she got home she was going to call her daughter in Philadelphia and remind her how much she mattered.
Chapter Nineteen
Celeste was busy in her small home office, searching her real estate database for new leads. The company she worked for had just that morning updated their lists. She was hoping to find something that she could sink her teeth into, possibly a multiple dwelling. Those went for top dollar even in the current tight economic times.
The long list of foreclosures went on for several pages. She couldn't imagine having to give up her home. All her life anything she'd ever wanted had been hers for the taking. Her life was one of privilege and as much as she railed against it, she couldn't deny its benefits.
Her grandfather, when she was much younger, had often told her of the dark days of the depression. How one day he was a wealthy man, on the top of the world, a big house with servants, a thriving business in finance, and the next day he had nothing. He and her grandmother struggled for several years before they were back on their feet and able to invest again, he'd said. He'd taken on a job in c
onstruction under the New Deal, determined to do whatever was necessary to regain the lifestyle he'd lost, and regain enough footing that he was able to run for and hold political office, where much of his real power eventually came from.
Her grandfather was luckier than most. Far too many couldn't endure the thought of not having, and had taken their lives. It was her grandparents' wealth, combined with that of her father's, that allowed them to live in the rarified world that they did. She supposed she should be grateful.
She continued to scroll until she reached the category she was looking for and began making notes on what looked like good possibilities. She reached for the phone to contact one of the sellers on the list, just as her doorbell rang.
Frowning, she pushed up from her seat, annoyed that the doorman had let someone up unannounced. He'd definitely get short-changed in his Christmas stocking.
She reached the door and peered through the peephole. Corrine Shaw was pacing back and forth in front of her door.
"Shit," she sputtered. Drawing in a breath of resolve, she unlocked the door. "Mother, what a surprise," she said syrupy sweet.
Corrine glared at her and pushed by her as if it was her home rather than her daughter's.
Celeste slammed the door. "Nice coat. Is it new?"
Corrine whirled around to face her, her cheeks flushed with her ever-present outrage. "Would you mind telling me what is going on?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about." She ripped the newspaper out of her Louis Vuitton purse and shook it in her face. "This is what I'm talking about." She hurled the newspaper on the couch.
Celeste glanced at the front page and Clinton and Allison stared back at her. Her stomach tightened. She knew she'd have to have this unfortunate conversation at some point, she simply didn't think it would be so soon. Her shoulders slumped a little. She walked to the couch and sat down, crossing her legs.
"Well," her mother demanded. "How did you manage to screw this up?"
Celeste's gaze rose to meet her mother's and quickly jerked away. The look of pure fury and contempt stilled the barb she wanted to toss back. It was always like this between them, with Corrine on the attack for some irrational slight or faux pas, and Celeste on the defensive, struggling to find the words to explain whatever misdeed she'd been accused of.
"Do you know how embarrassing this is? I will be the laughingstock of the club. I still get questions and raised eyebrows about this...this real estate thing." As she ranted her pace became more frenetic, picking up more speed with each imagined slight. "And now this! Everyone who is anybody knew about you and Clinton. It was understood that you were to be married. Then to see him on the front page of the newspaper with Allison! My Gawd, what must people be thinking?" Her hand flew to her mouth as if she were really going to burst into tears. "This is all your doing. I know it. It has to be. Clinton understood where his bread was buttered by becoming a part of this family. Bringing together the Shaws and the Averys would have been one of society's biggest coups since Kennedy and Onassis.
"All your life you've done everything you possibly could to infuriate me, humiliate your family. A disappointment to us all. It's been one thing after another. Enough is enough." She came to a full halt, her finger wagging as she glared at her daughter. "You are going to fix this. You are going to make it right. I will not tolerate another one of your scandals. Do you understand me? Or I swear to you, I will cut you off without a dime. Then see how you can manage to live here--" her arm swept the luxurious space "--or anywhere else for that matter...peddling low-end apartments!"
As she sat there pummeled by her mother's caustic verbal assault her mind tripped backward and forward to all of these conversations. For as far back as she could remember, her mother always found whatever Celeste did not up to the Shaw standard, from her ineptitude at ballet, her awkwardness on horseback, to not being at the top of her class or being selected homecoming queen. It didn't matter. Whatever it was it was never good enough or better than so-and-so's child. At least you have money and looks, her mother would generally conclude at the end of her lambasting. And when your looks go you will have the money to fix them.
Celeste wasn't exceptionally smart, or moderately talented. She knew it and had come to accept it. She traveled in a circle of friends that would as soon stab you in the back as share a martini over lunch at Cipriani's. And although she never fit in the world of her parents and their ilk, she knew what she was entitled to; her family's fortune, and with that she could dress herself up, live the high life and pretend to be just as happy as everyone else, because her money allowed her to. Her money and standing in society camouflaged her lack of talent, skills, or brilliance. Without it, she would simply be another pretty face until that, too, was gone.
"You are going to call him and apologize," her mother was saying.
Celeste watched her mother's polished lips move but she'd stopped listening. What would she do? How would she survive? Parris's statement to her of a few weeks ago rose to the surface as she stared at her mother, hypnotically walking back and forth in front of her. But you benefit from it.
It was true, she did benefit from it. She'd never had to do anything to earn her way through life. Parris held a job before her grandmother died. She had a voice that could earn her a living. Leslie struggled but she made it work day after day, not only taking care of herself, but also looking after her mother and never asking for help. These were women who never had what she did. And in her parents' eyes they would be "beneath" them and not worthy of their time. But in truth they were the only real women she knew.
Suddenly she stood. "Mother, please leave."
Corrine blinked rapidly, her long neck arching back. "What did you say?"
"I said to please leave before I wind up saying something very ugly."
"How dare you? I pay for this place you want to put me out of!"
Celeste folded her arms, looked down at the floor and suddenly wished she had her big deep purse to search through as the words stumbled out of her mouth. "I don't love Clinton. We barely like each other. It was his decision to take up with Allison again, even if I may have pushed him in that direction. If you want to cut me off and out of the family--" she finally lifted her head, her heart was beating so rapidly that her vision clouded for a moment "--then cut me off. I'll find a way to make it, just like everyone else in the real world."
"You have no idea what you're saying. You wouldn't survive a day without your cars and your wardrobe and your expense accounts." Corrine tossed her head back and laughed. "Don't be ridiculous. Now, be a good girl and pick up the phone, call Clinton and invite him over to our place for dinner. We'll--"
"Stop it! Just stop it! Don't you hear what I'm saying? I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm not going to be your puppet on a string. I'm not going to continue to live my life through your expectations. I'm thirty-three years old and I don't even know who I am." Her eyes darted back and forth as she paced, and all the years of being assaulted by her mother's caustic tongue came roaring to the surface. "Everything that I've been taught that was important is all superficial, Mother. You gauge your entire life, my life, on our 'position' and who we know, who knows us. I have never felt that I had as much value to you as one of your mink coats. I've never been your daughter. Just another possession. Do you have any idea what that's like?"
Corrine's thin nostrils flared. "You've obviously lost your mind."
She knew it would be hard as hell, but if she didn't do this now, in another twenty years she would be her mother and she could not allow that to happen.
"No, Mother, I think I've finally found it. You can't run my life anymore. I won't let you. I can't let you. So if you want to disown me because I won't say 'I do' to someone I don't love, then fine. If it makes you feel powerful to take this all away--" she threw her arms up in the air "--then do it." She walked toward the door and opened it. "I never needed a benefactor. I needed a mother."
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Corrine drew in a breath, lifted her chin and gathered her coat around her as if she'd suddenly been hit by a cold draft of air. She stalked toward the door and gave her daughter one last look of pure incomprehensibility and walked out without another word.
Slowly Celeste closed the door. The adrenaline still charged through her veins. The exchange of words resounded in the room. She'd never stood up to her mother. She'd always inhaled whatever Corrine set under her nose no matter how much she may have hated the smell of it.
She plopped down on her couch, her legs suddenly feeling wobbly. What if her mother went through with her threat? How would she manage? Where would she live? What about the lease on her car, her credit cards? She pressed her hands to her face. You've really gone and done it now, she thought.
She raised her head and looked slowly around, her heart pounding with the gravity of what she'd mouthed herself into. But then a slow smile crept across her mouth when the appalled look that carved itself onto her mother's face emerged in her head. Now that was worth the price of admission. Corrine Shaw had never been told just where she could put her "upper crust" before and certainly not by her own daughter. Celeste began to laugh and couldn't stop. She was surprised her mother hadn't passed out on the floor. Wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes, she pushed up from the chair, feeling an overwhelming sense of freedom, breathing on her own for the very first time.
She walked toward the phone and dialed Sam's number. If she was going to get kicked to the curb she may as well go out with a bang.
"Hey, I was wondering, if you're not busy tonight, I thought maybe we could see a movie or something," she said the moment he picked up the phone.
He chuckled deep in his throat and it ran through her like a hot toddy. "Sounds good. I'm down. What brought this on?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, since we've been seeing each other both you and I know that it's been this unspoken thing that it would be at your place. So, I'm wondering what changed."
