What We Keep (22 page)

“I’ll be getting some more things, of course,” my mother said. “This is just for now.”

Neither Sharla nor I said anything. What could she possibly get that would work against the sadness of this place—the plaster-patched walls, the creaking floorboards, the chipping tile in the bathroom, the rust stains in both sinks?

“Did you
buy
this furniture?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, with some measure of pride. “I’ve sold two paintings already—out in Santa Fe. People pay for my art!”

She smiled at me, then at Sharla, then at me again. Next door, someone hawked; then the toilet flushed. “Uh-huh,” I said, finally. I wanted to punch Sharla.
She wasn’t saying anything. I felt as though I might as well be here alone.

As if reading my mind, my mother said, “Sharla?”

She did not respond, at first. But then, “How can you live here?” she asked.

Not my question, exactly.
Why
are you living here, is what I wanted to know. And then there was this:
Who
are you?

“It’s what I can afford right now,” my mother said. “Later, I hope to have my own house.”

“Like Jasmine?” I asked.

“Well …” She went to the refrigerator, began taking things out: a package of chicken legs, lettuce. “Jasmine sold her house. Just last week.”

“She did?” I had not seen any activity in Jasmine’s house since she and my mother had left: no people, no sign saying the place was for sale.

“Yes. It was really quick—some family where the father got transferred. They only looked at it once, isn’t that something? They’ll be moving in in a few weeks.”

“We’re getting new neighbors?” I asked.

“Yes. I understand the children are quite young; maybe you can baby-sit.”

“But …” It irritated me that so much could have happened unbeknownst to me.
“When
did they look at it?”

“I suppose you might have been in school.”

“But what about all Jasmine’s
stuff
?”

“Well, that’s … I meant to talk to you about that. She will be having a truck come, a moving truck, next Friday. And they’ll … Well, I’m going to use it, too. To bring my things here. Just
my
things, you know, my clothes, and so on.”

“But you—”

“Jasmine will be moving back to Clear Falls, too,” my mother said. “That’s how we can share the truck. Isn’t that lucky?”

“Where is she moving?” Sharla, now. Angry.

“Nearby, I think,” my mother said.

She turned slowly, faced us. “You know, she’s become an awfully good friend to me. I—”

“I want to go home,” Sharla said.

“Just a minute,” my mother said. “Just a minute! You just
got
here! We need to
talk
about some things!”

Sharla would not look at our mother. She stood stiffly, her mouth a grim, straight line.

“Look,” our mother said, her voice softer, reasoning. “You won’t talk to me on the phone, not really. You won’t write to me. And now you just got here and you want to leave.”

Silence. The tap dripped.

Sharla continued to stare straight ahead. I thought of statues I’d seen, blankness where eyes should have been.

My mother walked partway over to Sharla, then stopped. “Sharla, I’m your
mother
, my God, I …
look
at me, why won’t you let me
tell
you anything!”

“I’m waiting outside for Dad.” Now Sharla’s face was flushed; I could see she was trying not to cry. She moved toward the door.

“Sharla,” my mother said quietly. “Please.”

Sharla opened the door and my mother rushed to her, put her arms around her. “Will you
stop
this, will you just—”

But Sharla pulled free, and was gone, running down the dim hall.

My mother turned to me, her eyes wide and bright. “I bought chicken,” she said, walking quickly back to the kitchen. “I thought I’d fry it. Mashed potatoes. And I made a cake, too, and guess what kind of frosting it has? Caramel! It’s in the refrigerator, take a look.” She put on an apron.

“I don’t want anything,” I said. “Thank you. I have to go with Sharla.”

“No you don’t,” my mother said, her back to me. She pulled down a small sack of flour from the cupboard, began shaking it into a bowl I had never seen before. “You can stay.”

“I don’t want to. I really don’t.” I backed up slowly until I got to the door; then I, too, began running.

My father received several more phone calls in the next week from a woman whose name we learned was Georgia Anderson. And then she came for dinner.

She was a secretary at my father’s office; she worked, in fact, for his boss. She was blond, blue-eyed, slightly overweight, but very pretty. She had a shy way about her, but she opened up when Sharla brought her to our bedroom. She told us she loved our room, examined with care (but without touching) our figurines, the pictures we had on our walls, the books on our nightstand, our stuffed animals. She told us she had shared a room with her sister when she was growing up, that she had loved and hated it, that they had used a piece of red yarn to divide the room exactly, that they spoke to each other at night on tin can telephones, that they got to have their own miniature Christmas tree on their dresser every year.

She had brought dessert: a cherry pie she had made
that was still warm from the oven, the top decorated with beautiful pastry leaves. By the time we ate it, it seemed everyone felt relaxed and happy. I loved having our table balanced again, loved seeing my father converse with someone other than Sharla and me. When my father poured coffee for the two of them, Sharla and I excused ourselves to go and do homework.

“So what do you think of her?” Sharla asked. She was lying on her stomach, her head bent over her book, her hair hiding her face.

“I don’t know.” I liked her.

“I like her,” Sharla said.

“Me, too.”

Sharla turned onto her back, stretched out luxuriously. I shut my book, did the same.

“She made the dress she was wearing,” Sharla said.

“She did?” It was a beautiful green wool dress, full-skirted, with a soft bow at the neck. There was a matching green belt.

“Even the belt?”

“Yup. She sews everything: curtains, coats, tablecloths; she made Halloween costumes for all her nieces and nephews.”

“How do you know?”

“She told me, when you were in the bathroom.”

“I wish she’d make me something.” My wardrobe was in terrible shape; we never had gotten clothes for school, and I had in fact outgrown many things. I knew a girl at school whose mother sewed for her; she always wore matching headbands with her outfits.

“Ask her.” Sharla yawned. “She’ll do it.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she really loves to sew. And she really loves Dad.”

I looked quickly at Sharla, thinking of something to say that would undermine her remark, that would take away some of the strength and surety of it. But there was nothing to say. It was true.

Sharla stared back at me. She was not unhappy about this, I saw. Nor, I realized, was I. Somewhere inside, I’d been waiting for it. Now it was here. And it was not a bad thing. This weekend, we had decided, we were all going to look at Christmas displays in the store windows, then have dinner out at the fanciest restaurant we could think of.

I pushed my school books out of the way, reached for the
Seventeen
magazine Georgia had brought us as a happy-to-meet-you present. I began looking at the clothes. I wanted suggestions for all the things I could ask for now.

Georgia taught Sharla and me to sew. Sharla never kept it up after high school, but I did. I love it. There’s something about the self-reliance of it all, of understanding secrets about how things are made, of being able to make invisible repairs.

Even after we could make our own clothes, Georgia still made the harder things: coats, prom dresses. And now she makes wonderful things for our children. Lately, it’s quilts. My kids always open her presents first at Christmastime, and they always love what they get. They call her Grandma. I want them to. They know she’s not
my real mother, but they don’t care. She does everything right. When my father died last year, it was Georgia who brought all of us peace. As she always had. In direct opposition to you-know-who.

T
he week after our mother moved back, we met her at a restaurant downtown, at her request. It was a small Italian place, dimly lit, red-and-white-checked tablecloths. Our father dropped us off, and we found our mother at a corner table. She stood, embraced us briefly, then sat down, her face grim.

“What’s wrong with you?” Sharla asked.

“Nothing. What do you mean?”

“You look mad.”

“I’m not mad.”

Silence.

She picked up the menu, her voice high and pleasant. “So! What kind of pizza would you like?”

“I want spaghetti and meatballs,” Sharla said.

“Well, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to agree on a pizza. I can’t afford three entrées. I thought we could just share a pizza.”

Sharla put down the menu. “I don’t care then, you pick. I don’t really like pizza.”

My mother looked up, surprised. “Since when?”

Sharla shrugged, turned her head away, studied the wall.

My mother leaned back in her chair, sighed. Then she sat up and moved in close to Sharla, spoke quietly. “You know, I have had just about enough from you.”

“What?
” Sharla said. “What did I do?”

“Your saying you don’t like pizza, for starters, that’s just deliberately—”

“I DON’T like pizza!” Sharla yelled. The few other patrons turned to look at us, then away.

“Don’t you raise your voice,” my mother said. “You show some respect for the other people trying to have a nice dinner here, if you can’t show respect to me.”

“She really doesn’t like pizza anymore,” I said. “She said that last week.”

“Shut up,” Sharla told me.

I sat back in my chair, hurt. Then,
“You
shut up,” I said.

My mother put her coat on, picked up her purse. “Suppose we just not do this,” she said. “Suppose you two just go home. I know you’d rather be there, anyway. I don’t have to do this. I do
not
have to do this. I have feelings, too. I have limits.”

I looked at Sharla, incredulous at my mother’s behavior. Sharla was smiling, the smirk variety. But I saw that she was afraid.

My mother called my father from the restaurant’s pay phone. He had just gotten home, but he came right back. When we got into the car, I saw him staring out the window at my mother with an expression full of only pity. He drove off in such a way as to make me think he was trying to be gentle. My mother got smaller in the distance, then disappeared.

“I told you she was crazy,” Sharla said, when we were in bed that night, the lights out.

“I think she just got mad.”

“Why? Who would yell at their kids because they don’t like pizza anymore?”

“She didn’t yell.”

“Same thing,” Sharla said.

I turned my pillow over, shut my eyes. Lately, when I went to sleep, I made a fist and laid it over my heart. I did this now, then bent down to suck at my knuckle.

“What are you doing over there?” Sharla asked.

“Nothing.”

“Well, do it quieter.”

On Christmas Eve, our father pulled up in front of our mother’s house. I got out of the car and waited for Sharla, who did not budge. “Hurry up!” I said. “It’s cold!”

She did not move.

“Sharla?” my father said.

She closed her eyes, leaned her head back against the seat.

“Come on!” I said, and then watched, amazed, as she lay down on the seat and began sobbing.

My father sat dumbstruck for a moment, then called to me to get back in the car. I climbed into the backseat, slammed the door behind me.

I had never heard Sharla cry this way. It sounded like fake laughter. My father pulled the car closer to the curb, turned off the engine, put his hand on Sharla’s back.

“Sharla? What is it?”

“I can’t,” she said, her voice muffled and sounding as though she had a cold. “Please don’t make me go in there. I just can’t.”

“Sharla, it’s Christmas Eve,” my father said. “She’s your mother.”

She sat up, wiped furiously at her face. “You’re getting divorced!”

“Yes, we are,” my father said carefully. “But she is still your mother. She will always be your mother.”

“I don’t WANT her to be!” Sharla yelled. “I don’t want her anymore! Dad, you don’t know what it’s like to go and see her. She’s crazy now!”

“She’s not crazy,” he said. “She’s different, that’s true. But she’s not crazy. And Sharla, you know she loves you very much.”

“I can’t go in there.”

We sat. The car began to get cold, and my father started the engine, turned the heater up full blast. I looked up to my mother’s windows and saw the outline of her standing there. I slumped down further in the backseat, looked away.

Finally, my father said, “I’ll tell you what, Sharla. Just go and visit for a few hours; you don’t have to spend the night, all right?”

She did not answer.

“Can you just do that, honey?”

“No!” she said, her voice breaking, and she sat up and held on to the lapels of my father’s coat, sobbing loudly again, begging him to take her home.

He stroked her head, looked over into the backseat at me.

I shook my head.

“You don’t want to go back home?” he asked quietly.

“No,” I said. “I don’t want to go to Mom’s either.”

“All right,” he sighed. “All right. Just let me go up and tell her. Let me talk to her.”

I watched my father walk up the steps to the building and go in. I saw my mother leave the window to let him in.

“I just can’t visit her anymore,” Sharla said.

“I know.”

“But you can, Ginny.”

“I don’t want to, either.”

I knew what Sharla was feeling: the pull to a mother versus the great discomfort of spending time with a stranger who asked too much of you. Sharla said our mother was beginning to act desperate, that when she thought of her, she saw a creature with large, watery eyes, trembling lips, and claws for hands. I knew what she meant, though my image of my mother was tempered by some measure of compassion: I could see how much she hurt. But I could not give her what she wanted. Not the things she named, such as living with her at least part-time; not the things she did not name that were the things she wanted most, such as a move back inside me to the lit place she used to occupy. That place was gone.