Pieces of My Mother (7 page)

We've gone through at least eight live-ins since our mom left. They come and go like stray cats that show up on the porch of our yellow house and then move on. Sometimes they say we are more like wild animals than children. Jamie and Eden are often sent home from school—when they aren't ditching. There are broken bones, burned skin, fistfights, and fires to contend with while looking after us.

Right now, we have Terry. She's our ninth. She tells me ghost stories. Not the make-believe kind, but the true kind—stories of her real-life personal encounters with ghosts. She said that she felt the presence of a ghost in our house the first time she stepped into my dad's attic bedroom, but she took the job as a live-in anyway because she sensed that it was a
good
spirit. I like the idea of good spirit living in our house.

Terry is a grandma type who dyes her hair bright orange and layers her whole face with powder as thick and white as the Duncan Hines cake mix we used to eat beneath our old house. She's got eyes that crinkle up when she smiles, and she smells like roses.

One day, she sits me down at the dining-room table with a handful of pretzels and says, “Honey, you need to know the truth about ghosts.”

“Okay,” I say.

She raises her red eyebrows to the top of her forehead, stares into my eyes, and tells me the true story about the time she came home to find a lit cigarette smoking itself over her bed.

“There it was, puffing and smoking and waving up and down without a person attached to it. I knew right away that my mother was smoking that cigarette. It had a tiny stain of Coral Reef right on the tip, and that was
her
lipstick. She wore that coral even though it was too much orange for her pale skin. You see, she had been denied cigarettes during the last days of her life while lying on her deathbed. You've got to understand something about spirits, my dear Melissa. They show up to
tell
you things. And my mother was telling me that she would not be denied her smokes, even in the afterlife. So there she rested on my own bed that day, smoking the life right out of that cigarette.”

I lick all the sandy salt off the last pretzel.

“God bless her, she was stubborn,” Terry continues. “I never touched one of those deadly sticks, and I'll tell you something else. I'm going straight to heaven because I have seen enough ghosts in my life and I don't want to end up in their gang.”

When Terry stops talking, I don't ask her what happened next. I think for a long time about that cigarette floating in the air with its lipstick tip.

A few days later, Terry takes me with her to do our grocery shopping. I count stop signs as we drive and wonder if she's going to let me pick out a root beer at the market. I am still embarrassed about peeing in the back of our station wagon on the last trip to the Mayfair market. I kept saying I had to go, but Jamie and Eden were fighting and yelling so much that Terry couldn't hear me.

We pass stop sign number four, and Terry suddenly hits the brakes hard and pulls over to the side of the road. The wagon swerves back and forth, tossing me against the door.

“My God, did you see that!” she exclaims. She makes a U-turn in the middle of Novato Boulevard and pulls into the dusty corner lot where the town nativity scene is set up every Christmas. Today, a dozen paintings in fancy frames are propped up against wood crates.

“Would you look at that,” she says, transfixed. She stares out the window at a painting directly in front of us. The dust around the car clears, revealing a large oil painting of an ocean sunset with turquoise waves and an orange sky.

“That is beauty on a canvas,” she says slowly. “It's the most truthful thing I have seen in a long time.”

“
That?
” I ask.

“Yes, that,” she says.

“It's nice,” I say to be polite.

She jumps out of the car, walks over to the painting, and stands there with her orange hair waving in the wind and blending into the painted sunset. A man in a wide-brimmed straw hat steps out of an old green pickup truck and approaches her. He seems to be trying to make eye contact with her, but her eyes do not leave the painting. I stay in the front seat, sticking my finger into the old yellow foam beneath the cracked leather, and I think,
I
don't get it. It's a picture of waves.
I look for an answer in the other paintings. More waves and beaches. More orange sunsets.

She hurries back to the car and wiggles into the seat behind the steering wheel.

“I've got to have that painting. We're skipping the grocery store, sweetie. I've got to see what I have left in my bank account.”

“Does it cost a lot?” I ask.

“The artist will give me a good price if I have cash.”

Then I see the desperation in her face, her mind calculating and wondering how she can get the money. I've seen my dad with this look when he's talking about the bills he can't pay. I figure the painting must cost more than a hundred dollars. Maybe a thousand.

“Have you ever seen such beauty, sweetie pie? Such godliness?”

I turn my head to her. The powder on her cheeks has turned thick and pasty from the tears running down her face.

“It's very nice,” I say, afraid to admit I don't understand what she's talking about.

“I think that's what heaven must look like. I'm almost certain of it,” she says as if she is talking to herself.

Terry emptied out her savings from the bank to buy that painting. She brought it back to our house wrapped in brown paper and placed it safely on the floor behind her bed board.

Two weeks later she dropped the news just like all the others had. I wasn't that surprised because she had been acting different ever since the day of the painting. She didn't have time to tell any ghost stories, and she seemed to be in hurry about everything. She told my dad that she'd found an apartment across town to live in on her own. My dad offered to pay her more money but she said it wasn't about the money.

“Is it something to do with the painting?” I asked her before she left.

She smiled at me with her crinkly eyes and said, “It's sort of about that painting, sweetie.”

I waited for her to say something more but she didn't.

The painting of the ocean put a spell on her, and I couldn't understand why. How could a stupid painting change someone's mind about living with us? I tried to tell my dad about this but he didn't get it. He said that maybe Terry just needed her own space and that it was a lot of work for someone her age to take care of three kids all day.

My dad is looking for a live-in that can stick around a little longer this time. He's got a classified ad in the
Novato
Advance
that comes out on Saturday. I ask him when Mom can come back to visit. My dad replies that he hasn't been able to reach her and that maybe she has moved to a new house again.

I keep trying to picture the places she lives. Sometimes I think I can see her sitting at a sunny kitchen table where she drinks coffee with cream and sugar. The curtains behind her are yellow with tiny white flowers, and her ashtray is a ruby-colored glass heart. My imagination is all I have.
It's okay
, I tell myself. Maybe she will call soon. Maybe she will come and be our new live-in.

From afar, my mom was aware of the ever-changing hands in our house. But she never indicated if it bothered her. The idea of that is unfathomable to me; I can't imagine someone else raising my children. When Dominic and Bella were younger we'd frequent the local parks. They loved digging in the sand, climbing the giant spider, and swinging from the monkey bars. But the park was one of the most lonely and isolating outings for me. I couldn't help noticing the children that were there with nannies. Even if the nannies were attentive, I'd focus on the kids who were barefoot and sitting in the sandbox with vacant eyes—certain they were sad and wishing for their parent to be there with them.

My father continued to find an eclectic assortment of live-ins to look after us: couples, hippies, grandmothers, drill sergeant types, cat ladies, and psychics.

Gerta, the Olympic swimmer from Germany, was one of the first. I liked her because she saved me from drowning in the undertow at Stinson Beach. Dorothy from Bakersfield carried around a little dog named Toto. (Yes, really.)

Sonny and Wes were teenage neighborhood boys who occasionally watched us in between live-ins. They entertained us by lighting matches and setting off firecrackers in the house. But after the living-room curtains caught fire, my dad didn't ask them back.

Then there was Lynn with the emerald-green eyes and Tia with the blue eye shadow. Jennifer, who said she could teach cats to talk like humans. And Claire and Arthur, who taught us the importance of the peace sign. And then Ken and Sharon, who left without saying as much as good-bye to any of us (and were creepy anyway).

Our live-ins often seemed to pack their bags and leave on short notice. Taking care of three feral kids full-time couldn't have been an easy job. Still, we imagined our mother might come back. Every day we fought to understand our place in the world and wondered who the next set of players in our yellow house might be.

• • •

I keep perusing my mother's files, searching for any sort of clue to better understand her. My fingers graze a manila folder stuffed down in the back of the cabinet. I pull it out and see my mom's handwriting penciled across the top:

Letters Never Sent & Thought Dabbles

The folder feels heavy in my hands. Letters
never
sent
? I open it slightly, enough to catch a glimpse of folded-up letters and torn sheets of perforated paper and the scent of my mother's hands, metallic from her fingers full of rings. Why would she keep a file of letters that went unsent? What has she kept hidden? I close the folder, questioning the integrity of snooping through her personal things. But I'm desperate for something to hold on to.

I shut my eyes and sit with the folder on my lap, wanting to do the right thing although everything feels wrong. What if there is something in here that I am not supposed to know? A tremor creeps into my hands and then consumes my whole body.

I open my eyes, reach into the folder, and draw out a letter written on hotel stationery to my great-grandmother. “The Fairmont Hotel and Tower—Atop Nob Hill in San Francisco” is embossed across the top in blue and gold letters.

Dearest Gran,

I can't begin to express all that has happened to me since I last wrote. The European plans had to be scotched for a while—Daddy didn't approve and I didn't feel I had enough money. He still doesn't approve, and I still don't feel totally financed, but I'm going anyway. It may sound foolish, Gran, but I think this may be my Rubicon. I am absolutely terrified about the whole venture, but by dammy, I'm going to overcome the fear and GO. Karen and I will go to Paris where a friend has an apartment. Then down through France into Spain, up into Italy, across Greece, and down into the islands. From there things get a bit hazy—perhaps Switzerland and Germany. I would like to stay until December and then come home for Christmas. There is a possibility of J. taking the babies to NY then. Well, I refuse to spend Christmas without my tads. Gran, I can hardly wait to see the Parthenon by moonlight. And Knossos will rebloom with the Minoan culture while we are there. Be prepared for adventure!

I am aware that my mom traveled to Greece sometime after she left us. I have gathered that from things my dad said in passing and photographs I glimpsed of her on the Aegean Sea with her roommate Karen, whom she mentions here in the letter. But I don't think she ever made it back to us “tads” that Christmas.

I remember my mom once telling me about her Gran and how close they were. I wonder why she never sent off this letter—and why she's kept it all these years.

I pull out another letter, addressed to her sister.

Dearest Joanna,

I am in limbo rather. Can't quite get it together. I'm floating between Novato and Stuart's and the city and feeling pretty lost. Fuck, I'm so uncertain—school? Teepee? Nepal with Stuart for three magic months? Back with the kids? Help! Too many choices. I want to escape to the woods most of all but I am so unsure of making it. The woods, the woods, the wonderful woods—woulds? Tomorrow I'm back, wonder if I should. No permanence is necessary, however—dear Obadiah. Are we children caught in the universal turmoil, or is the wood just wet and low? To have the good fortune to have so many opportunities is misfortune for me. I wish I had my sweet blue Car to help me decide—him being my best friend and all.

I close my eyes and watch my mom drive away in her “sweet blue Car.” Where did she flee to when she left? And if she wanted opportunity so much, why did she call it a misfortune? The chronology of her life after abandoning us has always been unclear to me. Even my father was uncertain as to her whereabouts much of the time—especially during the first few years after she disappeared and left him trying to pin her down for answers.

I continue reading.

Off to the wild, blue yonder. Canada can't be so cold in September. I'm not deserting and shirking all responsibility. I'll probably go to Florida actually—if I bus it, then I will have lots of time for thought and call my Gran at the same time.

I'm not sure how to react to my mom's carefree musings about “where to go next” that blithely disregard her responsibilities. Maybe I should be outraged, but I'm not. I'm fascinated. Maybe I'm even jealous. Somewhere deep inside me, I can relate to my mother's irrepressible desire to be free of everyone, everything. Maybe I have inherited this fleeting nature too. Though I love my children passionately, I leap at opportunities for time away from them.

It's not a lack of love but a fierce desire to be alone. I need it often, this solitude, this time to think and figure things out. And it never feels like enough. At other times I wish I could disappear and come back as a new and improved mother—a top-of-the-line, high-efficiency model. Maybe that was my mom's intention at one point, but it never materialized. Or maybe she feared she would never be anything more than a mother in life.

When I was standing in line at the dreaded dollar store several years ago, with an armful of cleaning supplies and cheap plastic containers, my daughter Bella blurted out a statement that caught me off guard and silenced me. She said, “Mama, how come you never wanted to be anything when you grew up?”

I was crushed by her perception of me. Was I just a mother and nothing else in her eyes?

The truth is, I never imagined being a mother. Growing up, I didn't have it on my list of dreams. For a long time, I wanted to be an actress. Later, I dreamed of traveling as a photographer for
National
Geographic
or going on archaeological digs where I would discover lost treasures and ancient artifacts. I was also certain that someday I'd ride on the Olympic equestrian team and have my own stable of horses. But it never occurred to me that I would follow in my mom's footsteps and become a mother.

That familiar fear starts rattling around inside me again: what if a leaving tendency lies dormant inside me? Nobody believes me when I say this, but they don't know how quickly lives can get derailed, how maybe my mom didn't want to leave, or intended to leave only for a little while that became forever.

Then another thought shakes me: my brothers and I share a common history of longing for our mother, and I can't help but wonder if all three of us may have made the same monumental mistake. Perhaps, in our silence after her departure, we gave her permission to leave. Maybe we unintentionally handed our mom three free tickets to travel the world with little or no guilt about the family she'd left behind. Maybe we handed her the orange Monopoly card that said “Get out of jail free anytime.”

Perhaps she was just testing the bounds of our love when she left, and we failed her. We waited for her to change her mind, but we didn't fight for her or plead for her to come back. And even when she visited occasionally, we still never begged her to come back and stay for good. We were so awed to see her again in person that we never thought to ask for more, to try to win her back.

Maybe she needed someone to fight for her. Maybe she needed my dad to hold onto her and tell her she was good inside and out when she had thoughts of leaving us. And when she walked out the front door, maybe she needed us to grab onto her waist or wrap ourselves around her and beg her not to go. Maybe she was planning to come back but no one asked her.

So what did we do instead? Jamie, Eden, and I sat and waited on our porch steps on hot summer evenings while mosquitoes buzzed and bit our ankles and elbows. We went to the Marin County Fair, sunk our teeth into caramel apples, rode the Ferris wheel high up in the sky, and wished she was there with us. I hid under my yellow and green quilt with Bun-Bun at night and waited. I sat on the hay bales stacked high in the barn and wondered when we would see her next. I lay down alongside my hamster Fuzzy's grave on our hillside with handfuls of yellow buttercups, and waited.

We were always waiting.

I stop reading her dabbles and letters because I am afraid. What if her letters trigger something unpredictable inside of me? Like my mom, I could go off track. What makes me immune from retreating to the woods or skipping out the front door into the wild, blue yonder?