Don't Call Me Mother (30 page)

I am afraid to look, afraid of death up close. Gram nudges me, but I hang back and stand in line beside Edith. Eventually, I move forward and look at Blanche: a lifeless, deflated body, all bones and sharp angles, her tiny head with coiffed white hair sinking into the pillow. I remember her singsong voice as she talked to the flour, the fire, the dumplings in her potato soup. I feel bereaved but so grateful as I say good-bye.

Uncle Hal, his thick shoulders lumpy under his Sunday coat, breaks down. I’m relieved to see his tears and the tears of the other men, men who never express emotion, men so even-keeled, so full of jokes that I never imagined them being so tender-hearted.

Gram wipes her eyes. “Why aren’t you crying? Don’t you care?”

I stare at her, fumbling for words. “I do care, I’ll miss her a lot, but she lived a full life. She was ninety-two. Edith told me she was ready to die.”

“How dare you talk like that? Shame, shame on you,” she hisses. I move away from her, sick of her constant venom. It makes me feel old and heavy myself. I make a vow as I skulk away: I won’t let her negativity affect me any more.

A young minister comes to the podium. He talks about everlasting life, reads some scripture. Blanche had a Bible, but I never saw her read it. She was a practical person who appreciated the eruption of life in her garden, the birth of grandchildren and great-grands, but I don’t know if she believed in God. In the stories she told about her life, she never needed a supreme being; she always saved herself.

Loving Blanche wasn’t always easy. I have chosen to forgive, or forget, her grouchy side, the side of her that complained, cried, sighed, and cheated at gin rummy. I remember, instead, what she taught me. Because of her, I know how to grow potatoes, strawberries, and tomatoes. I know how to make potato soup and egg noodles from scratch. If I had to, I could start a fire and bake a cake in her old cookstove. I have gleaned a lifetime of woman’s wisdom from my hours with Blanche.

Shortly after I return to campus from the funeral, Mother sends me a letter typed on yellow legal paper. I read the letter many times, tears running down my face, surprised by her openness with me. I begin to believe that there could be a new chance for us.

Dear Miss Pudding,

I have been thinking lately about my childhood. Blanche had a farm, and I used to visit. I remember home-baked bread, warm milk from the cows, and a group of ladies quilting in the parlor; having a lot of fun with Gram’s half brothers and sisters, home-made ice cream being made in the yard on a Sunday afternoon; thunder and lighting at night, and being scared. Little chicks being hatched, and horses, and oh all sorts of things that are fun to remember.

And when I was little, I lived with my great-grandmother Josephine in town, and Blanche would visit. I used to be so happy when she came, as I think I was very lonely. She always had a silk dress on, but when she was on the farm she wore aprons and sunbonnets, and worked in the garden.

I am surprised to hear that Mother has the same fond memories of the farm and our Iowa relatives as I do.

I would look for my father, who used to come to Muscatine every Saturday night without fail. But sometimes he didn’t see me. I used to walk along the street looking for him, and he was usually there somewhere.

Mother went looking for her father? My chest hurts as I imagine my mother as a little girl, with the same feelings that I had. I can picture her as an innocent child, instead of the wild woman I know. How lost she sounds.

My mother used to come from Chicago to see me. This was wonderful, like a dream. She was very beautiful and soft and lovely, and I had a hard time after she left, because I missed her. She didn’t come very often. Later, when she married Burt, I came to live with them.

It was nice to have my mother, whom I didn’t know very well. I think perhaps I was very difficult. I am not sure, but I think so. Or else my mother wasn’t used to being around children. I didn’t know a single playmate, and I was so bashful and didn’t know what to do, and everyone was so strange. Ugh, I hate to think of it. I was very backward, and didn’t know anything, and sometimes I think I still don’t.

I am getting older. It is very hard for me to realize I have a grown daughter. I am sorry that I didn’t remarry and have you to live with me like my mother did, but it just didn’t happen. Now I am worried about my future. I have always been very dependent on others.

I am not at all efficient, and sort of bungle things up. I didn’t seem to be able to get things straightened around, so I just live day to day and do the best I can. I hope you have a direction to go toward. I guess your grandmother has trained you far better than I could have done, and I guess you know the things that you should know.

I never did know much about life, always too protected and too un-knowing about everything. I don’t know whether people realized this or not, and I don’t think I have changed much. I always thought people were different from the way I found them.

Anyway, your Gram is a very smart woman, and I would have just dreamed the time away. I am an idealist and a dreamer, and I would have taught you nothing practical. I sort of go around in a mist or something. I think perhaps you will know how to live and face life. I never could have taught you this, and you will need it. I am sure you will be a success, which I have never been. I know a little bit about everything and not much about anything.

My mother reveals so many things I’ve never heard before—how much she missed her mother, that she often felt awkward and uncertain. Did she remember her own childhood when she used to visit me? She always seemed decisive and stubborn—certain of what she was doing, not listening to anyone else. I know about this mist she talks about—sometimes life is cast in a thick fog for me, too. Did mother know that she’d never come back when she left me with Gram, or was it an accident, everything that happened to us?

Somebody always did it for me. I think others have even lived my life for me—I just went along for the ride, hither and yon. Very good, but now not so good, because no one is living for me. I am living myself, but don’t know what I am living for—something? Somebody? Where am I going and what am I doing? Rather confusing.

Mother seems so lost, my heart aches for her. She thought others lived her life for her? Gram made so many decisions for mother, and in a way ran her life.

I am very sorry that you didn’t have a mother and father together in the same house, but I think your father tried very hard under the circumstances—I know he loves you very much, and you are his only child… I didn’t live with my father, ever, either, but this in no way impaired my love for him, and so must it not with you.

I suppose you have heard a lot of wrangling among adults through your little life, but don’t pay any attention to this—people just do this sometimes. The adults’ anger wasn’t your fault. Everybody just loved you a lot. Too bad people can’t be calm, but they haven’t this much consideration. I have, but most people haven’t. Adults didn’t mean to quarrel in front of you; nothing ever was your fault. Everyone loved you and was vying for your attention.

This I can’t accept. They fought for their own reasons. In her own mind, those fights have been rescripted. I don’t buy her explanation, but I know it’s her way of telling me she’s sorry.

Anyway, you were conceived and born in the most welcome way. You were very much looked forward to, with a great deal of impatience, both by your father and by me. You were the most wonderful miracle that ever happened. I have never been the same since.

I just couldn’t make things work right afterward. I got married for the express purpose of having you. I was married very soon after meeting your father, six weeks to be exact, and I said the first thing I wanted to do was have a baby, and so my wish was granted and you came into being, and it was all very wonderful, and I was very happy. You were born very quickly, nearly too quickly, one cold March morning, about 5:10 to be exact. It all happened so fast that it seemed it didn’t happen at all. Truly, it was years before I could believe it.

My mother wanted me! She says I was her miracle! Some long-parched desert inside me soaks up her words, even as I struggle to understand them. I write her a long letter in response, asking her questions and sharing some of my own old feelings. I keep reading her letter, holding it to my heart like a talisman. Maybe our having shared these things will make the future better. Maybe the past can be over now, and we won’t have to keep revisiting it.

I look through pictures from her childhood that I’ve tucked away. There she is at two years old, her hands folded as she sits in front of her grandfather’s house in Wapello, her eyes telegraphing sorrow. Where is her mother? In another photograph she holds a baby and perches in a rocking chair, her eyes glittering. My little mother is a sweet-looking child. She was like me: small, lost, and at the mercy of her family. How did that little girl become the kind of woman she is now?

I want to know more so I can learn from her mistakes. I must not let it happen to me.

Leaving at Last

I am in the Norman train station with several suitcases, wearing a brown suit with a hot pink lining, hose, new pumps, and a hat. Decked out like this, I feel ready for sophisticated Chicago. I’ve kicked off all traces of the small-town girl.

Sometimes it seems I have spent half my life at train stations, waiting for my dreams to be fulfilled. Again and again, throughout my childhood, I would imagine a thrilling reunion with my beautiful parents, only to be disappointed by the tarnished reality of them.

Now I am a grown woman and understand that Mother and Daddy aren’t perfect, no one is. In Chicago, I will get to know them as real people. Most significantly, my time with them won’t be marred by my grandmother’s influence. I can no longer endure her misery and the guilt she wants to bury me in. For the sake of my spirit’s survival, I have put great distance between Gram and myself. Now, at last, there’s space in my mind and heart for my parents.

I hold onto my hat as the train roars into the station. A gracious conductor helps me into the car and I find a seat just before the train lurches forward. Soon we are clicking along on the tracks. I gaze out the window, waiting for the special station, Perry, a place of so much childhood longing. When it appears, it’s just the same. Clutches of people swarm the train; men climb off and sweep children into their arms; women cry and wipe their eyes. I watch a small girl with long hair who reminds me of myself as she stands back and waves, her face etched in sadness. How I understand that look.

The train pauses for only a moment, then resumes its journey, hurtling me toward my future in an unknown place. I whisper good-bye to my grandmother. I don’t wish her ill, despite all the years of abuse. I sincerely want her to be happy, but it will have to be without me. She is part of the past I am eager to leave behind. Still, her “Sugar Pie” echoes in my heart. If only she could let me go with love.

The train passes empty fields that have just been planted with wheat. I will miss the golden sea of grain rippling in summer wind, the songs of whippoorwills on telephone poles, the red earth of this prairie. It is dark when we click-clack into Kansas, leaving Oklahoma and my childhood behind. In the morning I will gaze at the skyscrapers of Chicago, no longer just a city in my dreams. I will spend time with my father in his own home, a first for me, and with my mother in hers. They will take me to wonderful places in Chicago and I’ll become a part of their lives. At the same time I’ll make my own way at a whole new school where I’ll meet new people and make new friends. I can’t wait to get to know my parents away from Gram. Through knowing them better, I’ll find out where I came from so I can know where I’m going.

Anticipation zips like a current through my brain. I sleep very little as the train rocks me back and forth in its wonderful way. As the night passes, I imagine all the great things that lie ahead: a loving mother and father, a husband and children of my own, music and art and literature, the further ripening of all my gifts.