Children of Paranoia (31 page)

“Oh my, Joseph, are you okay?” my mother shouted when she noticed the limp. The wound was healing well but it still hurt. The pain had dulled but spread over my entire leg.

“Just a small work injury,” I replied. She took that as a signal to let it drop for now.

The place was exactly as I had remembered it. The spatulas were even in the same place. My mother led us through the kitchen and straight into the tiny living room. She sat you down right in front of the fire, trying to warm you up. I hadn't brought a girl home since I was seventeen. I really didn't know how my mother was going to react. I sat down in the love seat opposite my mother, who sat in the middle of the couch. We were each, at most, five feet from each other. My mother looked us both over again in silence, as if trying to paint the picture with her mind. Eventually she spoke. “So, to what do I owe this visit?” She looked at you when she asked the question. You looked at me. Perhaps we should have prepared for the questions in the car. I hoped she didn't think we'd come to announce an engagement.

“I got a couple of weeks' vacation, Ma. Maria and I decided to take it together.” You looked relieved when I spoke, relieved that you didn't have to talk yet. “I wanted her to meet you.” I knew that this last part would make my mother happy and hoped, in vain, that it would stop the questions for a little while.

“Where did you guys drive from?” Again, my mother looked at you when she asked the question. Again, I answered the question anyway.

“We drove from Boston after taking a bus from Montreal. Maria's a college student in Montreal.” The conversation was a little dance with neither you nor my mother knowing exactly what you were allowed to say. My mother handled it by asking questions. You handled it by shutting up completely.

“Really? A college girl? That's wonderful. We could use a little education around here. And what are you studying, dear?” You looked up at me to make sure that you could safely answer this question. I nodded to you to let you know that it was safe to speak.

“I'm still trying to decide between Psychology and Religion,” you replied.

My mother nodded. “Aren't we all,” my mother replied with a laugh. “Well, those sound like wonderful choices. Montreal? Are you Canadian?”

“I'm going to grab us some food, Ma,” I interrupted. “You got anything in the fridge?”

“Oh, my, where are my manners?” My mother started to stand up. “You guys have been traveling all day. I should have offered you something.”

“Sit down, Ma,” I said. “I know my way around our kitchen. You stay and keep Maria company. By the time I get back, I'm sure you'll know more about her than I do. You hungry, Maria?”

“Starving,” you replied, dropping your guard when you spoke to me. We'd stopped to grab a snack in Connecticut on the way down but hadn't had a real meal all day.

“You want anything, Ma?”

“Well, I'm not about to let my son and his girlfriend eat alone.” My mother's voice sounded ecstatic just to be saying the word
girlfriend.
I almost thought she was going to trill her
r'
s. I made my way into the kitchen and left you and my mother to your own devices. My mother knew the game. She wasn't going to say anything controversial. She'd leave all that for conversations with me later. I just wanted you two to talk. I wanted you to get to know each other. I knew that these fleeting moments would likely be the only time the two of you would ever get to spend with each other. Despite everything that happened, I still treasure those moments.

The refrigerator was predictably empty. My mother had virtually given up eating about the same time that we moved into this place. The cupboard, however, had enough for me to throw a meal together. I could hear you and my mother, mostly my mother, chatting away in the other room as I put on a pot of spaghetti. The house was warm. It was cozy. I set the table so that we could all eat together in the kitchen. The kitchen table was pushed up against the wall so, without moving it, there was only room for three people. That was plenty for that evening. I set it up so that you would sit on one side of me and my mother would sit on the other. As the pasta cooked, I opened up a can of crushed tomatoes and took out some seasoning to make some sauce. “Do you have any wine for the spaghetti sauce, Ma?” I shouted from the kitchen, interrupting whatever topic the two of you had moved on to.

“Sure,” my mother replied. She got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen. She grabbed a bottle of wine from her little wine rack. “We'll have to open a new bottle, but I don't think we'll have a better occasion for that anyway.” She handed me the bottle and came over and kissed me on the cheek. “She seems lovely,” my mother said to me in a whisper. “You've outdone yourself.”

“I know,” I replied.

Then my mother gave me a look. It was just a quick glance but I knew that it meant that she wanted to talk to me later, alone. “Why is this the first I'm hearing of her?” she asked me with a smile. I simply shrugged and lifted my eyebrows in response. She'd have more questions later. I wanted her to get to know you a little bit before I had to answer them. It had taken me all of ten minutes to fall for you. I figured that it shouldn't take my mother more than an hour.

I uncorked the wine and poured a full glass into my spaghetti sauce. My mother went back into the living room and the two of you continued to chat. You never told me what you talked about while I was cooking. The entire subject of my mother eventually became taboo. When I called the two of you in for dinner, you were happy. You glanced at me before sitting down at the dinner table and your eyes twinkled.

“Look at my son, the chef,” my mother purred as she sat down. “It didn't take you long to domesticate this one, did it, Maria?”

“Don't look at me,” you replied, staring down at the food. “This is the first time he's ever cooked for me.”

“How shameful, Joey. Didn't I teach you how to properly treat a woman?”

“Sit. Eat. Let's see if it's edible before we start complaining that I don't cook enough.” Just as I sat down at the table my mother got up. She stood up from her chair and ran over to one of the cabinets to retrieve three wineglasses.

“Before we eat,” she spoke as she came back over to the table, “a toast.” She filled each of the wineglasses with what was left in the bottle of wine I had used to make the spaghetti sauce. “I guess I'll have to make up for my son's bad manners.” This was the happiest I could ever remember my mother. At least I gave her this moment. She lifted her glass. “To my son, who I don't see nearly enough, and to his new friend, who I hope to see more of.” All three of us clinked our wine-filled glasses together. “Anything to add, Joey?” My mother looked at me. I have no idea what she expected me to say.

“To not drinking alone,” I added, barely remembering where I had heard the toast before.

“Very classy,” my mother scolded me, but we all clinked our glasses together again. My mother and I each lifted the glass to our lips. You slipped yours back onto the table. My mother noticed. There was never any chance that she wouldn't. “You're not drinking, sweetie?”

“I'm not much of a drinker, Joan,” you responded.

“Well, just a sip, dear. It's not a real toast if you don't have a sip,” my mother pressed on. She watched you carefully.

“That's birthday wishes and fortune cookies, Mom,” I butted in, eyeing my mother to let her know to drop the subject. “It's been a long day. Let's eat.” I forked some of the spaghetti onto each of our plates. I started with equal portions. My mother didn't finish hers. I had seconds. You had thirds. I was amazed by how much you could eat already.

We chatted through dinner. My mother asked us how long we were planning on staying. We hadn't even discussed this yet. I told her that we were staying for two nights. That just sounded right. There were a few things that I wanted to show you in town before we left. I didn't think two days was too long. We'd still have ten days to make our run for it. Then my mother asked us where we were going on our vacation. Again, I didn't know. You looked at me when she asked this as if you were wondering yourself. Even if I knew where we were going, I wouldn't have told my mother. I wouldn't tell anyone. The fewer people who knew the better, for them and for us. South, I said. Maybe we'd go to Graceland, I said. You seemed to be enamored with that idea.

“Well, don't let him make you stay at any of the cheap hotels, dear,” my mother said to you, reaching across the dinner table and placing her hand over yours. “He's got to learn a little class someday.”

“Yes, ma'am,” you replied with a giggle. I hoped you remembered that this wasn't a vacation—that we had to stay diligent. For now, I let it go.

When we were done eating, you helped my mother clear the table. Both of you insisted that, since I had cooked, I got to relax during the cleanup. Once the kitchen was back in order, you told me that you were tired and ready to go to bed. My mother showed you to my sister's old room. My mother hadn't touched it since my sister died. Pictures of her and her friends from high school still sat in frames on the bookshelves. A few pictures of her with her college friends were hung with thumbtacks on the wall above her desk. Her high school French award was still prominently displayed as if she'd won it yesterday. I carried your bag up the stairs and dropped it off in the room. “So I guess I'm alone in here tonight, huh?” you asked me as you placed your nearly empty duffel bag at the foot of the bed.

“I think so. My mom's a little old fashioned,” I replied. “Are you going to be all right?”

“I'll be fine. It's so peaceful here.” You stood up on the tips of your toes to give me a small kiss on the lips. “Your mother's sweet.”

“Yeah, to you,” I teased. “Now that you're going to bed, you're leaving me alone to face the inquisition.”

“So we're staying here two days?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“And then we're going to Graceland?”

“We'll see.”

When I got back downstairs, my mother was waiting for my return.

 

 

“She's lovely,” my mother said to me before I reached the bottom of the stairs.

“You don't know the half of it,” I replied with a smirk. I was a little boy again, showing my mother the gem that I'd found in the woods.

“How long have you two been together?” She was trying to gauge how serious this was. She should have known simply by the fact that I'd brought you home.

“Long enough to know that I never want to be with anybody else.”

“Well.” My mother paused, taken aback by my response. Then she sat back down on the couch. I sat across from her. “How long has that been?” She smiled again.

“A few months, but it seems like longer. We hit it off instantly.”

“She's young, Joe. She's young to be making this type of commitment.” I thought she was trying to protect me.

“She's young in some ways. She's not so young in a lot of others. She's smarter than me. Sometimes it feels like she's older than I am.”

“How old is she?”

“She's a sophomore in college, Mom. That's not that young,” I used the same half-truth that you had used on me. My mother had put me on the defensive. Something seemed off.

“Is she one of us?” Finally, she asked the question that I was sure she was dying to ask from the moment she first laid eyes on you.

“No, Mom. She's not. She's just a person. She's not one of us. She's not one of them.”

“Does she know about things?” She meant the War, though my mother would never use the word.

“Yes.”

“So you told her?” My mother stared momentarily out the window into the dark night. She didn't expect me to answer the question again. “Well, I guess there's no going back now, then, is there?”

“I told you, Mom. She's it for me. Even if I could go back, I wouldn't.” I wanted her to be happy for me.

“It's a hard life you're leading her into, Joe,” she said. She looked sad. My mother was a living embodiment of just how hard that life could be. I imagine that she was thinking about my father, about my sister, about her parents. All of them died violently, all before their time, leaving her to grow old alone, hiding in a small house in the corner of the world.

“Would you have given any of it up, Mom?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Would you have traded your life for an ordinary life, knowing that you'd never get to spend time with Dad, never would have had known Jessica, never would have had me?”

She looked aghast that I would even ask the question. “Of course not.” Some strength was returning to my mother's voice. “It's a hard life, sure, but for us, it's a just life and worth the sacrifice. You know that.”

“Well, then, be happy for me, Mom.” I stood up and walked over, taking a seat next to her on the couch. I put my arm around her shoulder. “The world's not perfect, Ma, but it's better for me when Maria's around.”

“Then I'm happy for you,” my mother said. I could tell that there was some truth in what she was saying but it was only a partial truth. “I'm just worried about her.”

“I think she knows what she's getting herself into, Mom.” I didn't believe the words even as they left my mouth.

“Let's hope so,” she replied. Then she turned to me, her eyes glistening as if she were holding back tears. She hugged me again. The hug at the door was for the past, this one was for the future.