Don't Call Me Mother (38 page)

I sink back under the quilts and finally fall asleep. In the dream world, I find myself wandering through shadowy labyrinths in Vera’s basement. She is screaming at me, her vicious eyes gleaming with an eerie yellow light. She morphs into Gram, then Mother, then back to herself. She chases me through haunted, lonely landscapes. I’m afraid of every sound and every movement in a foggy world of leafless trees, an eternity of doom.

Dan soon snuffles at the door, waking me up. He finds a crack, pushes, and wanders in, waving his tail back and forth, a smile on his face. I’m glad to see him; he’s such a cheerful antidote to my bad dreams. Generally, I’m a cat person, but I got Dan from a rescue agency because I thought a dog would be good for the kids. As it turns out, he has been good for me, too. He’s taught me more about self-acceptance and unconditional love than any human I’ve ever known, except for Mr. Brauninger.

Shannon was with me when I went to pick up Dan. When we arrived at the rescuer’s house, Dan rushed up to me, tail wagging, eager for a new home with us. Unaccustomed to this enthusiastic doggie reception, I wouldn’t let him lick me. Once we got him home, I offered him newly purchased dog food and took him for a walk with our new leash. Later, I noticed that Dan kept following me from room to room, even into the bathroom. I knew he had eaten and I had just taken him for a walk. As I had with the children when they were babies, I ascertained that Dan had all his needs met. Still, he followed me from room to room.

Perplexed, I asked Shannon, “Why is he following me? What does he want?”

“Mom,” said Shannon, big brown eyes peering at me over the rim of his glasses, “he just likes you, that’s all.”

I stood thinking for a moment. We’d just picked Dan up that day. He didn’t even know me. “But I haven’t done anything to deserve it.”

“Oh Mom,” Shannon explained patiently, as if he were the adult and I were the child, “you don’t have to.”

I was taken aback. What do you mean I don’t have to do anything to deserve such devotion? I stared at Shannon, then at Dan, who sat in front of me, panting slightly, his pink tongue lolling out of his mouth. I realized that the look on his face was a dog smile, and patted his head. He made a move to lick me, then stopped, as if respecting my wish not to be licked. Moved almost to tears, I kneeled down in front of him and gazed into his eyes, trying to understand this radical notion of unconditional love, such generosity of spirit.

Now Dan is tending me in my illness the best he can, checking on me, making sure I don’t lose faith. He is a spiritual being, emanating peacefulness and patience. He’s certainly more spiritual than my mother, and much more accepting. She’s never given up her position of denying me, and in recent years she’s extended it to my children. Dan, just a dog, is an advanced teacher of love and acceptance, showing me that it is indeed possible. My mother, on the other hand, hasn’t got a clue. Yet I keep trying to win her over, desperate to prove to her—and, I suppose, to myself—that we’re a great family and I’m a good mother.

The California Zephyr

Through the years, I’ve returned to Iowa many times in summer to see my relatives, always staying at Aunt Edith’s, where we’ve kept up our tradition of working in the garden together and making lemon meringue and rhubarb pies. This year, Amanda and Shannon have come with me on the train, the California Zephyr, all the way from San Francisco. It’s important to me to introduce them to the hypnotic rhythms of the train as it chugs up the Sierras and across the rocky wilds of Utah. They get to see the Rockies, winding between canyons that follow the Colorado River, sleeping through the night as the train rolls through Nebraska. On the way they learn about the gold rush, the forty-niners, the Donner party, and other histories of America, encountering a world larger than themselves.

Once we get to Edith’s house, I show the kids how to cultivate the squash and tomato plants on August evenings, imagining Blanche beside me, her voice murmuring in my ear: “Don’t give up keeping the garden. You can trust the cycles of nature. You can count on the tomatoes, year after year.” Back in this place that always feels like home, I surrender to life’s simple pleasures. At night, after a dinner of pot roast and vegetables, fresh tomatoes, and pie, as always we sit out in the slow summer evening, watching the fireflies and telling family stories, initiating my children into the quiet rituals of country life.

At night, after Uncle Willard winds his seven chiming clocks, I tuck the kids into their sleeping bags and ascend the stairs. In my mind’s eye, Blanche is clump, clump, clumping up the stairs ahead of me. I settle into the bed we used to share, all those years of my young life captured in a patch of silver moonlight on the ceiling. My heart aches as I settle in, yearning to sleep with Blanche one more time, listening to her in the dark.

She whispers, “Don’t you give up, you hear me? I never did think your mama or Gram did right by you, but you have to go on.”

In my mind, I answer her. “I’ve been in therapy all these years, but I can’t seem to get over the past. When will Mother accept me? When will she just realize that I’m her daughter and it’s all okay?”

“You got to be yourself, that’s all you can do. Your mother has a few screws loose, but she’s still my little Jo’tine.”

“Blanche, I wish I could see you again. I miss making potato soup on your wood cookstove. You could teach me so much more now. I loved all your stories. Tell me one more time about baking bread, canning tomatoes…”

Silence. The reason death is so hard is that even when you tune in and listen, imagining what the dead would say, in the end you find only silence. Too much silence. I’m grateful, though, that Gram doesn’t haunt me as she threatened to. It seems like a miracle, but most days I don’t think of her at all. Perhaps that’s the gift of forgiveness.

Don’t Call Me Grandmother

The next day, Shannon, Amanda, and I get into an old rented station wagon for the trek to Chicago to see Mother. She hasn’t ever met Shannon, and has met Amanda only once, when she was a babe in arms. She’s already given me strict instructions and a long lecture over the phone. “Don’t tell them you’re related to me. I don’t want anyone to know my business.”

I fought with her, angry that she could be so cold and self-absorbed. In response, she shrieked so loudly I had to hold the phone away from my ear.

“I told you already—they don’t know I’ve been married, so I can’t have a child. God forbid, grandchildren. That makes me sound so old. I’m the youngest person in my building, and I rather like being treated like a youngster.” Mother went on, unaware of my heavy breathing. I was sweating with rage at her stubbornness, but I’m hardheaded too. I can’t seem to give up hoping that one day she’ll claim me and my children, the pride shining in her eyes. It’s probably a ridiculous dream, but I still believe it will happen someday, if I just keep trying.

Of course, if the past is any indicator of the future, this dream isn’t likely to come true. The worst memory I have of Mother’s overt rejection of me happened fifteen years earlier. On my way to Europe, I stopped to see her overnight. I got off the elevator and my heart raced, as always, when I saw her coming toward me down the hall. She was smoking, of course, and kept her eyes cast down as she walked within inches of me. I waited for her to say hello, certain that she knew it was me, but she passed by without a word. Stunned, I called her name.

She turned, surprise registering on her face. “Oh, I didn’t see you.” I stood there in shock, grief-stricken that my own mother didn’t recognize me. After all, I was the only other person in the hallway. Had she really become so oblivious to the rest of the world?

We went into her suite then, where I was grateful for a pleasant hour of conversation. The first part of our visits was always calm; she didn’t get mean or strange for about three hours. After talking for a while, we got dressed to go downstairs for dinner in the hotel. In the elevator, she looked me up and down, examining me closely, surveying my clothes, my face, my hair. Her eyes flickered and a slight smile appeared on her face.

I began to smile, too, sensing that she was pleased with me. Then she looked away and said, “I hope no one thinks you’re my daughter.” She went on talking, but I didn’t hear a word. Stabbed in the heart, I gasped for breath, trying to suppress my tears. As the elevator made its way down to the restaurant, my mood plummeted, too. I felt crushed like an insect under the spike of mother’s high-heeled shoe.

On the way to see Mother today, I coach the children, “Don’t tell anyone you’re her grandchildren, and don’t call her grandma.”

“But why, Mom?” I can tell by Shannon’s serious expression that he’s trying to understand something that makes no sense, and wants a reasonable answer. I fumble for words, but just end up repeating Mother’s instructions. Amanda leans over and kisses my cheek. “Why doesn’t she want you? She should be proud of you.”

I stare straight ahead at the road that bisects oceans of corn, unable to find an answer to my children’s questions. I wipe a tear off my cheek when Amanda isn’t looking.

Mother’s building is in a neighborhood of lively shops and tree-lined streets. Children’s voices echo across the avenue from the Lincoln Park zoo. My kids are restless to get out of the car, but I circle round and round in frustration—there’s no place to park. I decide to drop them off at the hotel with stern instructions not to tell anyone who they are.

As I drive away, it suddenly occurs to me that I’m doing just what Mother has demanded—accepting her crazy logic and passing it on to my kids. I keep feeling compelled to seek her out, though I’m still deathly afraid of her temper. She’s so unpredictable, fully capable of a dangerous, irrational rage. I want to protect my children from her, but I also want us to try to get along together. Everywhere I go, I see “normal” families sharing vacations and holidays. That never happened with us. When I was young, no one got along well enough to share a holiday. The few times Mother did come for Christmas or Easter, the day was memorable only for how terrible the fights were. Usually she’d go storming off and return to Chicago early.

When I get to the hotel, Amanda runs to me excited, her cheeks flushed. “Mom, everything is all right. The desk people asked us who we were, so I told them we were there to see Miss Myers, that we’re her grandchildren, so they called her and told her we’re here! Nothing bad happened.”

“You what? You told them? I told you not…” I hear Mother’s words spilling from my mouth. Shocked, I stop talking, but I’m worried about the kids. If they displease Mother, what might she do? By the time we arrive at her door I’m breathless with anxiety, but she motions us in with no fuss, and the visit proceeds without any disasters. I observe the children watching my mother, their solemn eyes taking in everything. It is clear that they’re uncomfortable when her sharp voice corrects them, telling Amanda she must have perfect posture at all times and telling Shannon not to bite his fingernails. They look at her as if to say: You’re a complete stranger, so why are you telling us what to do?

After dinner, Mother ushers us through the back door of the hotel, and Shannon whispers to Amanda, “She doesn’t want anyone to know we’re hers.”

My children are wise beyond their years, healthy enough to see through Mother’s crazy logic, which is more than you can say about me. I’m stuck in my own kind of madness, still believing that if I just keep trying, someday she’ll turn into a loving, welcoming grandmother.

It will be my youngest child who finally gets me to accept the ugly truth.