Pieces of My Mother (15 page)

My mom has a few glasses of wine and fills a thermos with coffee before we get back on the road. I try to convince her to let me play the nickel slots. I might get lucky in Boomtown. I could win us all the money we need to get home. But she says no, her luck was just fine. There was still Jackson, after all, waiting in the trailer.

A week later, two ladies are walking down our gravel road in high heels. Both wear black skirts and have canvas bags hanging off their shoulders. One has a lavender-colored shirt tucked in at the waist. The other one wears a plain white-collared shirt. Strangers don't usually come down our long gravel road unless they're lost, and especially not in high heels on a Saturday morning. I tell my mom to take a look out the window.

“Born-agains,” she says.

“What do you mean by ‘born-agains'?”

“Religious people. They go door to door trying to save you.”

“Save you from what?”

She laughs. “Your soul landing in hell, I suppose.”

My mom snips at her fingernails with a pair of metal clippers. The little crescents, still painted pink, fly up and skitter across the kitchen floor. A cigarette dangles from her mouth like a lollipop stick.

“They'll try to tell you what you should believe in. You can talk to them if you want, but I'm busy packing up,” she says.

I want to run and shut the front door quickly, but I hear heels clunking up the wooden stairs like heavy, tired horses. Then a voice echoes into the house, “Hello in there. Anybody home?”

“I don't want them to talk to me,” I say. “Can't you, Mom, please?”

“Oh no,” she says. “If you don't want to talk to them, then you tell them that. And don't be a pip-squeak, for Pete's sake.”

“Hello,” says the voice on the porch.

I run my tongue along my teeth, still gritty from not having been brushed this morning. I half-slip on my navy Keds and shuffle toward the front door. I suppose I can say that I'm on the way out to do my chores and that I don't have time to talk.

“Well, good morning. Aren't you a pretty one?” says the lady in lavender with a huge smile. “What's your name?”

“Melissa,” I tell her.

“Melissa. Now that's a pretty name. I don't think we have ever met such a pretty girl with that name. Have we, Lila Jane?”

Lila Jane, in white, smiles and shakes her head no. She's got her hair pulled up tight in a skinny ponytail and has orange freckles splattered across her face. Her eyes are blue like mine and we have the same middle name, though I never tell anyone that's my middle name unless they really want to know. She shifts from foot to foot like she's a little bit nervous.

Ruth, in the lavender, introduces herself and then starts talking on and on like she's never going to stop. She talks about God, the King of Endless Glory, the Power of Faith, sin, salvation, and a lot of other things I don't understand. I just nod my head a lot in the same way that Lila Jane does. I'm mostly interested in the color of her shirt, because it's not really lavender now that I'm taking a closer look at it. It's lilac, just like the old-fashioned lilacs that grow in our garden every spring.

Finally, Ruth pauses and says, “Have you ever been to church, sweetie?”

“No, not really,” I say.

“Well, we don't want to overwhelm you, but we would like to talk with you some more and leave you some of our
lit-ra-ture
.”

She hands me a thin paper booklet from out of her canvas bag. On the cover is a picture of a man who looks like he's drowning in a river. His hands are up in the air, his chin is halfway underwater, and he definitely looks like he wants to be saved. I guess this is what my mom was talking about.

“Do you like stories?” asks Lila Jane.

The one called Ruth peers past me and through the doorway. Like me, she hears the teakettle whistling in the kitchen. Then it stops whistling.

“Is that your mom in the kitchen?” she asks.

“Oh yeah. She's just visiting. She lives in Washington. You know, the state.”

Ruth looks at Lila Jane, then back at me. “Well, give her a holler. We'd like to give her some
lit-ra-ture
also,” she finally says.

I yell for my mom to come because I'm not sure why she didn't want to talk with them in the first place. The ladies really are friendly.

My mom takes her time getting to the door, and I'm glad when she shows up without a cigarette in her mouth. She politely nods when Ruth gives her the same big, warm smile and starts talking about believing in God and the Endless Glory and all that.

I step sideways so that I can watch my mom's face closely. Maybe these ladies are different from the born-agains she was telling me about. My mom keeps listening intently, then suddenly interrupts Ruth.

“Well, that's all very nice, but I believe in other things.”

“Would you mind me asking you a question?” Ruth says.

“Certainly not.”

“What it is that you believe in,
really
believe
in?”

It is a good question, but I sure am glad she didn't ask me. I wouldn't know what to say. I turn and look at my mom, and a shiver suddenly goes all the way up the back of my legs.
I'm going to find out what my mom really believes in.

My mom straightens her whole body, making herself a good two inches taller. She places her hands on her hips like she's posing for a magazine cover.

“You know what I believe in?” She points to the half-acre pasture outside our house. “You see that pony out there?”

We all turn and look. There is Jackson, the crazy dappled-gray pony my mom hauled out here from Vermont a week ago.

“
That's
what I believe in. That pony is going to be a champion someday.”

For a second, I think she is going to say something more. But I look at her eyes—serious, focused, and absolutely certain of what she believes in: Jackson.

Nobody says anything. We just stare at Jackson with his head down, yanking up mouthfuls of grass and swishing his tail back and forth at the flies.

“In fact, darlin',” my mom says to me, “that champion-to-be pony hasn't been fed this morning. Why don't you run out and give him some hay.”

“We'll just leave this booklet for you anyway,” Ruth says to my mom.

“That won't be necessary,” she says.

I'm starting down the stairs when Ruth adds, “Why don't we walk out with you? Love to get a closer look at that pony.”

The ladies follow me out to the pasture in their high heels. I tell them to watch out for the piles of manure. They talk about the God stuff but Lila Jane asks me a lot of questions about Jackson, like maybe she's starting to believe in him too. I tell her how Jackson almost ended up in the glue factory, but my mom saved him. I tell her how he is a really crazy pony, but that's only because he was beaten up by this horse dealer that sold him to my mom.

“That's awful,” says Lila Jane.

“Yeah, she had to pay three hundred dollars for him. And then she found out that he hates getting in the trailer so that's been a problem in getting him places.”

Lila Jane shakes her head.

“And the farrier charges an extra forty dollars to nail shoes on Jackson because he's a kicker and needs to be tied down and sedated.”

Jackson looks up at us with his ears perked forward and tosses his head in a playful sort of way.

“The thing is, he can sometimes be the sweetest pony ever.”

The first time my mom saw Jackson, she fell in love with his big glassy eyes and dark gray dapples. Then she found out that this pony could jump a four-foot fence from a standstill. She says he may be scared out of his mind, but he's got heart. That's where the champion part comes in. My mom says that, with some training, he could be a top pony jumper—maybe even get to Madison Square Garden someday. She named him Jackson for short, but his real name—his show name—is “Running on Empty.” It's her favorite song by Jackson Browne.

I love his dark gray dapples too. But I'm not so sure about Jackson Running on Empty. I don't trust him when I give him his grain. Sometimes he's just fine, but other times he turns sour and corners me with his ears flat and his nostrils flared. He's kicked me hard too. And he
can
jump four feet from a standstill, but it's usually because he's trying to escape.

Lila Jane says she always wanted a horse. Ruth asks me if it would be all right for them to come back sometime soon. I want to say no. But I say, “I don't know,” instead. I wish I could come up with an answer the way my mom does. I wish I had something to believe in like that—
really
believe
in—even if it were just a dappled gray pony named Running on Empty.

I watch Ruth and Lila disappear around the bend of our long driveway. Maybe they won't return like they said they would. People don't always keep their promises. I walk into the kitchen and sit across from my mom's blue duffel bag. She is always leaving. I don't know when I will see her next. Maybe Jackson won't turn out the way she hopes, and she'll come back and live with us. There's always that chance.

As I sit here beside my fading mother, I understand that Jackson was but a brief passing fancy in her life, and yet he seemed like everything to her at the time. Jackson was supposed to change her life. He was her winning lottery ticket. And I wanted to believe in him too. The ladies never came back, and I never went to church once until I met my husband. Thinking about it now, my mom really did put all her faith in that horse. One of her letters reminds me.

Dear Melissa,

I am having the most difficult time deciding what to do. Sure wish you were around so you could help me see things from a clear perspective. I do think that I might stay here for the winter if I can find a job right quick. If this pony Jackson turns out to be the high-priced article we expect him to be—well, I could be in really decent financial shape by the time summer is underway. I don't want to keep being away from you—Oy, it is difficult. I wish that you could be here. Though I don't think I could get myself to leave Jackson. He will be my nest egg, on top of being my very good friend and companion. He's been wonderful other than his blasted hind feet that are so long they are interfering with his proper movement and putting too much strain on his pasterns and tendons. Please let me hear from you real soon, Sugar. I want to know how you are feeling about things too—not just news. God, I miss you.

She believed in that pony until it became apparent that Jackson was actually a little nutty and didn't have the temperament to be a “champion.” As I watch my mom drifting out of this life, I wonder what she really believes in now. What stopped her from putting her faith in us instead?

There is a pool of deep red blood on the bathroom floor and a trail of smudged prints leading out of the bathroom. I feel queasy as I stare at the blood. It's infected. Hepatitis blood. My mom's blood. Kim explains that my mom didn't have a good night and that she stepped on a piece of glass when she was in the bathroom. He had to make sure that he stopped the bleeding since her blood has very little clotting ability at this point. I know that the veins surrounding her diseased liver are engorged like fat sausages stuffed into thin casings. If these veins give out and burst, she will internally bleed to death very quickly. This detail has been nagging me because it can't be seen.

I want to do the right thing and offer to clean the blood off the bathroom floor, but I chicken out and back slowly out of the room. I'm uneasy around blood. I can still see Eden's face covered in blood when he and Jamie got in a rock fight with some kids on the back hill. I remember once cutting my pet chicken's toenail too short and blood spurting out. I recall the sharp taste of blood pooling in my mouth after Eden slugged me in the face for hogging the heat on our old floor heater. And then there was the kind of blood that I needed to hide.

I am bleeding too much. We are out of paper towels in the kitchen. We are out of Zee napkins in the pantry. The art of my carefully folded and scotch-taped toilet paper is no longer working. I cut my white PE tube socks into rectangular strips and shove them down into my underwear.

I lie down on my bedroom floor and reach my arm underneath my dresser. I reach all the way back until I feel the baseboard and then hop my hand around until I feel the small green wallet I keep hidden from my brothers—who have taken to stealing things from my room. I open it to see how much money I have. Not certain how much I need, I take all of the neatly folded bills, slide them into the pocket of my jeans, then adjust the rectangular sock strips.

I get on my ten-speed and race down Center Road. I really can't stand these fat socks between my legs. I wish I didn't live in a house of boys. It's becoming harder to keep secrets. As I pedal, I make the mistake of looking up. Walking toward me are Emily Fink and Laura Lee West in their matching Dittos jeans. Shit. Of all the stupid people in this whole town, it has to be Emily Fink.

Laura Lee is all right, but a year and a half ago in sixth-grade health class, when we were about to see “the Movie” called
Growing
Up
and
Liking
It
, Emily Fink announced, “I can't wait to see Melissa's face when she sees this.” Then she turned to Laura Lee and said about me, “She's so immature.”

I didn't have a clue what having a period was, and it stunned and embarrassed me. Throughout the movie, all I could think about was what Emily Fink had said and what my face should or should not look like. Then there was that awful moment when the movie ended and all the fluorescent lights flooded the room. Emily Fink, with her perfectly flipped hair, was staring at me.

“So what did you think?” she asked.

I wanted to be casual. “About what?”

“Duh, about the movie.”

“Oh yeah. I already knew about all that stuff.”

“Yeah, right. Why is your face so red then?”

I wanted to punch her right then and there. But she was a foot taller than me and had breasts already.

It would be too obvious if I swerved my bike to the other side of the street just to avoid Emily Fink. So I push my head down, focusing on the blur of the spokes, and pedal as fast as I can. I hear Laura Lee say, “Hi,” but I race right by, pretending that I don't even see them.

I turn my bike toward Longs Drugs. I
hate
going into Longs because I got caught changing price tags there when I was ten. Jamie showed me the tag-changing trick when we were over at TG&Y after school, and I thought it was a perfectly good idea. I spent a lot of time wandering around in Longs and deciding what would be a fair price for items. I didn't try to hide it; I just peeled off stickers and switched them around until the amounts seemed right.

The policeman who came to the store told me it was the same thing as stealing. I got mad and cried when he said that, because it wasn't. I told him that my brothers did it all the time, and no one ever told them it was stealing. I know now that it's not the right thing to do, but I still hate going to Longs because I know about the security people watching from the tinted windows up above the pharmacy. Even though it was three years ago, I feel like they are still keeping an eye on me.

I go straight to the back of the store. Aisle Thirteen: Feminine Hygiene Products. The aisle I have avoided for months. I suppose most girls come down this aisle the first time with their moms, but that's not going to happen for me since I haven't even seen my mom since last fall. The first time I saw the spots of light blood in my underwear, I knew my whole life was changing. I sat on the bathroom floor for a long time, staring at the slate tiles and trying to figure things out. I didn't want anyone to know. While I was very good at keeping secrets, this kind of secret was complicated. I couldn't stop the blood from coming out.

I make a quick pass down the aisle full of pads, then loop back around. I turn my eyes sideways as I walk and catch the brand names on the boxes. The “growing up and liking it” lady in sixth grade suggested picking out whatever box design we liked best. I don't like any of the box designs. I take in the words quickly—Maxi, Mini, Mini-Maxi, Extra-Light Flow, Heavy Flow, Super Heavy. Okay, Super Heavy?

I reach sideways and pull down the medium-blue box, keeping my eyes straight ahead. Three other boxes somersault to the floor. I shove all four boxes back onto the metal shelf and walk toward the exit with my heart racing. I want to just leave but I can't. The sock between my legs is shifting; the inside of my thigh wet. I can smell it, the brown and ruby blood all mixed up.

I take my sweatshirt and tie it around my waist, just like the kindergarten teacher showed me when I forgot to put on underwear beneath my dress one morning. I know they are watching me now from the tinted windows upstairs. I am really being a freak in the store.

Then I come up with an idea. Why I didn't think of it earlier is beyond me. Aisle Seven: Office and School Supplies. I look for the yellow-orange school folders with sports drawings on the front and back, and the words “Pee-Chee—All-Season Portfolio” on the front. We use them all the time in school to keep papers in. There is a multiplication table on the inside cover. Nineteen cents each.

I pick up two and walk back to the aisle full of pads. I grab the medium-blue box and wedge it between the two Pee-Chee folders. My box of embarrassing pads is now covered on the front and the back, and I can walk to front of the store and pay for it. I keep my eyes down and set my supplies on the counter with the Pee-Chees carefully placed on top. I realize there will be a moment when the box of pads will be seen by everyone.

The store clerk picks up the two Pee-Chee folders and drops them into a paper bag. Then he picks up the box of pads and looks at it like he's confused. He turns the box around and around like he's trying to figure out what they are. He calls out loudly across the registers, “Bob, I need a price check on Stayfree maxi-pads.”

I want to disappear forever. I didn't change any price tags. My lip begins to quiver, and I bite down hard to make it stop. I hate Emily Fink. I hate “growing up and liking it.”

“Three-fifty-nine!” shouts Bob.

I pull the folded bills from my pocket. My eyes stay glued to the smooth counter surface as I take the change in my hand. I walk through the swinging glass doors out of Longs with a bulky paper bag, my blood-stained jeans, and my two new Pee-Chee folders.