Don't Call Me Mother (21 page)

I feel the sting of her opal ring across my cheek. Her eyes are wild. Where is Jesus now? He’s supposed to help me. I’ve given my life over to him. I told the truth just now when a lie might have been better for me. Gram is in a terrifying frenzy. She tears up newspapers and scatters them around the room. “How could you, how could you?”

What does she mean? What have I done to make her so mad? I shiver and huddle down, trying to be very small.

“You’re just like your no-good mother and father, doing what you damn well please. You don’t deserve all the good things I give you. Where would you be without me? You’d be dead, that’s what. You know damn well your mother and father don’t want you.”

I think about Jesus all the time, praying silently for him to save me.

Over the next two years, I get saved at church several more times, still hoping for a better life. Now and then, in the sunlight dancing on the prairie at dusk, I catch a glimpse of Him, a flicker of His pure white cloak. I know that if I just keep believing, He will someday save me.

Happy Twelfth Birthday

Mommy is curled into the burgundy velvet chair. Her knitting needles go click click, and a pink sweater trails down her lap. Her hair is newly dyed a warm auburn. The pink yarn, the burgundy chair, Mother’s hair, and the sun’s golden light create a vision of paradise and peace. At the moment, Mother is calm, even happy, chatting about her magical life in Chicago. She looks so beautiful to me right now. I wish her good mood could last forever, but I know it’s only temporary.

Mommy throws back her head to laugh. “The restaurant was perfect—candles on the tables, white tablecloths, and the best silver and china. He bought me the most expensive dinner, and held my hand.”

Gram snorts from her murky lair. I tense up, waiting for the usual outburst. She tears down all of Mother’s romantic stories piece by piece. It’s one of the reasons Mother runs off to Aunt Helen’s. She doesn’t want Gram’s negativity to destroy her perfect fantasy world.

I love just looking at my mother, filling myself up with her beauty. I know I will never be that beautiful, that men could never want me the way they want her. To hear her talk, she is the most desirable person in the world.

I have just turned twelve, old enough to think it’s strange that mother hasn’t married again, despite all her romantic talk. No one knows my secret wish: that my parents will someday remarry and take me to live with them in Chicago, that city in the clouds. Daddy seems happy with Hazel, but I’m certain that my parents belong together. From time to time I look at the picture of their honeymoon in my mother’s scrapbook. She wears a two-piece swimming suit and a huge smile, her head thrown back like a movie star. She sits next to Daddy, her long legs in front of her on the sand, exuding a breezy happiness I have never seen in person. Daddy sits with a long hairy arm around mother, a big smile on his face. I stare at this picture, trying to figure out who they were then and how things got to be the way they are now.

Today I bring out the scrapbook, sit next to Mother, and start turning pages. In one picture she stands huddled in a fur coat in front of a brick building. The caption reads March 18, 1945. Mother tells me that this picture was taken the evening before she went into labor. “Don’t worry about giving birth. It’s nothing. All these women complain, but for me a few pains, and whoosh, there you were!” She throws back her head and laughs again, her eyes dancing.

My baby bracelet is pasted in the book—little white beads spelling my name. My tiny footprints are there, and a photograph of Mother and me when I was about two months old. She is dressed in black lace and smiles broadly at the camera. The smiling baby with big blue eyes lies in her lap, not cradled in her arms.

“Is that me, really?”

“You were so tiny, I was afraid I’d drop you. I had a baby nurse. You cried a lot, but that was good for your lungs. Once you turned blue and I was so scared, but the nurse got you breathing again.”

Moments like this are like hand-blown glass.

Later, Mother is knitting and I am putting on my dress. “Come here and let me see you,” she says.

I giggle. “Why?”

“Come on—you’re turning into a young lady. I want to see how you’ve grown!” Mother is in such a great mood. I fold my arms across my chest, knowing I’m too skinny, with bony knobbed elbows and wrists and knees.

I force myself to stand in front of her.

“Oh look.” Her laugh rises and bubbles like quicksilver. “You have curves! Mother, she has curves.”

“What curves?” The only curves I know of are the slight mounds on my chest that I hope someday will grow.

Mother’s hands brush along my waist and hips. “These curves—see? You are growing up. You really are.”

“I’m twelve now.”

“Oh, what nonsense.” Gram can’t stay out of it. “Childhood—humph. In my day there was no such thing as childhood. You worked and went to school and did chores. Agghh—I hated it!” Gram gets up to spin playfully around the room. “Blanche had such a hard life, but that wasn’t for me. Chicago—oooh—that was the ticket.”

Mother says softly, “I wish I’d grown up in Chicago. I was stuck in Muscatine with all those old grownups.”

“You didn’t have it so bad. It was family, and they loved you.”

Mother sighs and says, “I was so lonely sometimes. But at least you brought me to Chicago when I was Linda’s age.”

There is an awkward silence, which I fill by prattling on about my birthday party, the one given by my friend Jewel’s mother. It was a surprise, with a cake and candles and wrapped presents. Gram dropped me off for the party, and I enjoyed a few hours of pure crystal happiness in Jewel’s breeze-filled house—a grand piano gleaming in their living room, yellow tulips in a vase. Theirs is a beautiful world that I don’t belong to but love to visit.

Mother and Gram stay calm and happy for a few days. It is a strange, special time, these two women drawing sustenance from each other. Their faces are tender with feelings, and their voices betray so many layers of emotion and history.

The front door is open on this warm March day. Outdoors and in, peace and good will prevail. I know this will change, that the bitterness will rage again someday, as it always does. But at this moment I am happy, content that we three, who are mothers and daughters to each other, can be at ease together, if only for a time.

I enter my thirteenth year on a tide of love and hope.

Welcome as a Snake

As I come to my senses from sleep, the delicious perfumes of spring—honeysuckle, freshly mown grass—fill me up. I bounce out of bed, excited by the bright, hopeful day, and put on a new dress. Then, as I tiptoe along the hall, I feel a prick of apprehension.

“Gram, what time was Daddy supposed to arrive in Perry?” I know the answer: 7:30. I hope my question will nudge her into action.

“Oh, who cares?” She shakes a shoulder at me, a sardonic look on her face.

Uh-oh. She’s making trouble, and she’ll blame it on him. Time to shift into fix-it gear.

“What are you going to wear?” I chirp. “I’ll pick out a few dresses, then you tell me which one, okay?”

She sneers at me, filling me with dread. It’s 8:30 now. Even if we could fly, we’d be two hours late. It will take her an hour to get ready, then another hour to drive to Perry. We’ll be three hours late, and Daddy will be furious. I haven’t seen my father for over a year, but if I get angry at Gram or try to rush her, she’ll slow down even more just to be nasty. So I suppress my irritation and act patient and cajoling.

By the time the Nash Rambler is on the road, it is ten o’clock. I could swear that she’s poking along on purpose. Just before the curve that takes us into Perry, she pulls over by a field of cows and forks out a cigarette. She smokes and talks about the cows, how handsome they are. “They are nice to look at, but awful to smell and milk. Be glad you have the life you do.” She hates her farm roots and often reminds me how lucky I am to have escaped her fate.

The cows chew their cuds in a slow, circular motion. The day is magnificent, the sun glinting on emerald grasses, but I am consumed by worry. Gram seems intent on ruining any chance for good will between her and my father. The cows watch us while Gram takes her time smoking.

I am shaking by the time we get to Perry. It’s like waiting for an execution. The sun is high and hot when we pull up to the station. Instantly, a large shadow blocks out the sun; then Daddy’s head is in the car, inches from Gram’s face.

“I feel as welcome as a goddamned snake!” he shouts, spit flying from his mouth. “A goddamned snake! How dare you make me wait for almost four hours!”

“How dare you talk to me like that! You have no business yelling at me, you bastard!” They are engaged in a pitched battle within seconds.

I reach out my hand, calling, “Daddy. Hi, Daddy.” They’re both yelling so loud my voice is drowned out. I crouch low in the back seat, not wanting any passersby to know I’m with these crazy people.

Finally, Daddy opens the car door. He seems to notice me for the first time. “Hi, Linda, honey. I’m sorry, but I’m so damned mad…” He tosses his suitcase and a box in the car and climbs in the backseat with me. I suppose I’m too old for the pick-me-up-and-swirl-me-around, but I miss that old giddy feeling of abandonment to joy.

They argue almost all the way home. “Daddy, Daddy.” I tug at his sleeve, hoping my little-girl act will distract him. “Daddy, what’s in the box? You have a present for me?” I act excited, bouncing in my seat.

“Linda Joy, don’t ask for presents. That’s rude.” Gram’s voice is flat.

“Oh, let her be.” With a ceremonial gesture he holds out the box. “Happy birthday.”

I tear it open to find a Tiny Tears doll that I had begged for a year ago. It doesn’t fit me now. I have curves and need Little Lady make-up and bath oil.

“Thank you! I just love it!” I hug the doll to my chest, playacting delight. I start to tell Daddy about school, Mr. Brauninger, and my cello, but then realize those topics are dangerous because of the money fights. I change the subject to the spelling bee, but this chatty interlude is brief.

Daddy and Gram start up again, their loud voices caroming around the car. I try to ignore them, watching through the rearview window as the world streams by. When we pass the pasture where Gram and I stopped on our way to the station, I’m pleased to see the only friendly faces of the day. I blurt out, “Look, Gram, there are our cows. Here’s where we stopped for your cigarette!” Gram’s narrowed eyes in the rearview mirror and her hiss from the front seat tell me that I have made a terrible mistake.

Daddy’s body tenses. “So you stopped, eh?” The fight ratchets up several notches. In the back seat beside Daddy, I put on and take off the doll’s diaper and her little pink jacket. I feed her with an empty bottle, pretending that I am her mother, rocking her in my arms. I don’t really want her, but she is my only friend right now. I feel guilty about not wanting her. I kiss her plastic face and tell her I’m sorry.

The next morning Gram drops me off at the Youngblood Hotel to meet Daddy. I nestle my face against his suit, breathing in his smell. He buys me lunch, ordering a Coke and all the French fries I want. He tells me that I’m growing up and that he wants to treat me like a young lady. This remark helps ease the disappointment I felt at his choice of the doll for my birthday gift.

There’s a strange feeling in my stomach as the elevator door closes. Daddy’s large, hairy body fills the elevator car, energy zipping from his arms and legs. He is thrilling, but behind my excitement I worry about Gram’s anger, and his. Of course, who could blame him, with Gram making us four hours late.

In the room, Daddy takes off his coat, removes his gold cufflinks, and rolls up the sleeves of his shirt. He asks me to sit next to him on the bed. The room is good sized, with a desk, a hard chair covered in a cream-colored cushion, a fancy mirror. A television is playing Saturday afternoon cowboy movies.

I look at my father, the man Gram has taught me to hate. Words that I have written in the hate letters flood my thoughts—son of a bitch, bastard, skinflint—but I blot them from my mind. His tanned face, with its green eyes and thick eyebrows, is like a magnet to me. He croons that he misses me, that it’s wrong for Gram and him to argue, but that he has to take a stand with her.