Mother

Mother
By Valerie
Stacks of French toast fried in bacon grease and doused with powdered sugar—Mamaw’s specialty. We are cleaning out Mamaw’s house—it’s amazing how much one woman can shove into a trailer—and all I can think of is bacon grease and powdered sugar. How many mornings did she stand in this hideous yellow kitchen and fry breakfast for me? As Mom and her siblings stand around the kitchen table taking turns selecting valuables and keepsakes, I sneak off to Mamaw’s bedroom.
My eyes drift toward a table in the corner. On it sets a picture of my great-grandmother. She smiles at me from a decade ago—her cheeks rosy and full, body firm and plump. So unlike the skeleton who now smiles at us—skin pasty and droopy, body frail and caving in. As I scan the photo, I begin to muse. What was Granny like at my age? Did the school boys swoon over her? Did she know she would outlive them all? That at 89 years old she would bury her daughter?
On the wall above the table hangs a snapshot of all the grandkids. Michael, Ryan, Leanna, Tara, me—and then there’s Randel. Dark hair, deep complexion, bright smile. A cute 10 year-old kid holding his baby cousin. Just looking at the picture, though, you would never guess he had lost his dad at two. You would never know the hell he would raise. The meth he would cook, the trips to jail. The things he would steal from Mamaw—her possessions, her time and love, her family.
I am sitting at Mamaw’s old wooden table, eating a heaping bowl of Captain Crunch, when Randel enters. Mamaw pours another glass of Sunny D into my Sippy cup. He grabs a bowl from the cabinet and slams it down on the table. I jump.
“If you leave milk out on the table, it’s going to go bad,” he grumbles. I slump in my chair, feeling this is my fault. I’m the one eating cereal.
“Fry me some breakfast, would ya?”
Mamaw hushes him, but turns quickly toward the stove. In a matter of minutes bacon grease fills the air. On the one hand, I’m relieved to be able to speak now—Randel is awake. He runs all over town at night, comes in late, and sleeps on the couch in the living room, fan aimed at his pasty white face. Now that he is awake, no one has to tiptoe around. On the other hand—Randel is awake. My breakfast alone with Mamaw has ended, and the fact is, we will still tiptoe around.
My aunt interrupts my musings to show me an old black and white of Mamaw in her late teens.
“Isn’t she just gorgeous?” she gushes.
A weird feeling overcomes me as I look at the face of this young, vivacious woman. Was this the woman who would lose her finger in an old factory accident, slaving away for hours without end to support her six children? Was this the woman who would suffer the murder of her son, just a few years out of high school? Was this the woman who would file bankruptcy to bail her fatherless grandson out of jail for the umpteenth time?
I offer a half-smile to my aunt as she leaves the room muttering to herself about what a dish Mamaw was. I turn from the photos and decide to snoop through her dresser. Vintage clip-on earrings and old valueless jewelry, treasures from my dress-up days, line her jewelry box. As I shuffle through the drawers, I stumble across an old letter addressed to Mamaw from my mother. Curious, I begin to read. After reading a few lines I realize this letter must have been written when my mother was in high school, just after her older brother Randy was murdered. My mother speaks of her parent’s temporary separation. She tells Mamaw that she hates how she never has time for her. She accuses her of not loving her or her dad as much as Randel. That she is tired of hearing the excuse “he doesn’t have a father anymore.”
Hushed voices penetrate the thin walls of Mamaw’s trailer. I grab a crayon from the box and pretend not to notice Mamaw and mom quarrelling. I can’t wait to watch TV on the couch tonight with Mamaw. For her to rub my face like when I was baby and for me to fall asleep on her lap. I hear a door open and a man’s deep voice joins the discussion. After a few moments, mom enters the room and scoops up my overnight bag.
“It’s time to go, honey.”
“We’re not staying the night?”
“No, we’ll come back and visit some other time.”
Confused, I reluctantly follow her out of the room. She freezes in the hallway as Randel passes by us. When we get to the back door, Mamaw reaches down to hug me.
“Angie, do you have to leave like this,” she whispers.
“Mother, I’m not the one doing this. You are. As long as he is in this house, we will not be staying…you know, nothing ever changes with you.”
I begin to cry as I conclude reading the letter. The words, written so long ago, still carry the stinging anger and resentment. Staring at the page, I begin to wonder if Mom was ever able to come to terms with Mamaw. Did she forgive and forget…or just forget?
“There you are!” mom says as she bursts into the room. Startled, I quickly wipe my face. Mom sees the letter in my hands and asks for it. Warily I hand it over. I watch as the smile on her face fades.
“I had no idea she kept this,” she says. I search her face, looking for the slightest hint of an answer to my questions, but I fight the urge to speak. She tucks the letter into her pocket.
“Let’s get some lunch.”
***
After three days of sifting through precious junk, cleaning and scrubbing, it is time to leave. Great-granny’s things are packed in the trunk; she is coming to stay with us, something we have patiently tried to explain to her multiple times now. As mom eases Granny into the front passenger’s seat of the car, I begin to wonder about the letter and the young woman who wrote it. How did she cope with the abandonment of her mother? How did she deal with her own grief from losing a brother? From the back seat, I watch as mom reaches over to give Granny’s hand a squeeze. And I realize that probably the only woman in the world who knows my mother’s secrets sits in that front passenger seat.
My mother stands at the kitchen sink, scrubbing away at a dish. I stand beside her, rinsing, drying, and putting things up in their proper place.
“You know, your Granny and I used to do the dishes together all the time,” she says.
I look up at her and smile.
“She would wash, I would dry, and I would tell her all of my secrets. I used to run over to her house almost every day after school.”
She pauses for a moment and then grabs another plate.
“Could you talk to Mamaw like I can talk to you?”I ask.
“I tried. But there were just some things I couldn’t say. Usually I just talked to Granny. She could take a secret to the grave.”
I stack a plate in the cabinet.
“I’m glad I can talk to you about anything,” I say.
“Me, too,” she says. “Me, too.”
***
“Can you tell me who’s keeping me here? Where’s my money? I’ll pay you if you just help me find my wallet.”
Her words pierce my heart.
“Well, Granny, mom has your money safely tucked away in your dresser drawer. Mom—you know Angie? Your granddaughter?”
This silences her. I watch as she attempts to hide her cluelessness and desperately strives to make sense of her whereabouts and of what I have just told her. My great-grandmother has been staying with us for two months now, ever since her last fall and hip break—ever since the death of her daughter.
Walker Texas Ranger, one of great-granny’s favorites, blares from the TV and patiently I wait on the couch beside her; will there be recognition this time or will she surrender helplessly to her mind’s suppression? Minutes pass. Suddenly a deep, resonating snore saws through the sounds of a Chuck Norris high kick to the face. Her head slowly slumps to her chest, so I reach over and prop it up with a pillow. Though it is seventy-five degrees inside, I throw an afghan over her lap.
Mom has gone for a walk. She says she needs fresh air. Translation: I need to escape my life for awhile. So like usual, I sacrifice homework or phone time with friends to sit with her.
Initially the plan to take in Granny seemed like a cinch. But getting this ancient being into the house took a century, and waiting on her soon became the norm. Time quickly revealed to us that caring for an 89-year-old woman is much like caring for a toddler, and no one understood this better than my mother. Mom was the one who patiently followed behind Granny’s footsteps, prepared to prevent a fall. Mom lifted her in and out of the tub. Mom rewashed her scanty dishwashing jobs. Mom helped with her physical therapy exercises. Mom battled to get her to eat something besides apple pie for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Mom dressed her and Mom wiped her fanny with baby wipes. Mom said it was her duty to care for Granny, just as Granny had cared for her all those years ago. During the “Randel years.”
As I watch Granny’s chest rise and fall, I think about what she must be feeling. I see her frail, wrinkly hands and think of the many quilts they have pieced together and the afghans they have crocheted. The green beans canned, the pecans cracked. They are the hands that held her husband, that soothed a daughter’s—a granddaughter’s—tears. As she rests, I wonder how it must feel to have everything you have ever known slip away. And I think about my mother. How she is struggling to say goodbye to the past. How she has lost two mothers in a span of a few weeks. How I am losing three.
Mom returns from her walk with red-brimmed eyes. Gracefully she eases onto the couch beside Granny and ever so gently lays a hand over hers. And somehow I know what she will say before a single word leaves her lips.
“I can’t do it anymore.” She releases a shuttering sigh. “I just can’t do it anymore.”

Awakening

By Valerie

She climbed into bed with me that night—my mother. She had said she would be staying at a friend’s house if we needed her, but she had slipped back in later when she thought we were asleep. I remember the knock. May I come in? The unexpected request. I shrugged a sure-you-can-stay. What was I supposed to say? As she slid between the sheets, I remember how strange it felt to lie beside my mother. To pretend like this was some kind of mother-daughter slumber party. To pretend like the fight with dad hadn’t just happened.

He hadn’t known she would be there when he entered my room in the wee hours of morning, ready to head off to work as usual. With mom supposedly gone, he must have been coming to tell me to watch my brother. The door creaked as he entered. My eyes fluttered open to see him bending forward, reaching out his hand to jostle me awake. But it was her arm that he grabbed. It was in her ear that he whispered. I heard the strangled sob escape his throat as she turned over and he realized the mistake. As he fled the room, she simply rolled back over. I caught a glimpse of her face before she burrowed deeper into the pillow; her eyes revealed the pain she knew she was causing him—but she had nothing left to give.

I’m not sure what made me follow him. I had never really liked my dad. He set outrageous rules without explanations, worked constantly, and expected everyone to shut up while he watched the 6 o’clock news. Our meaningful conversations were scarce. How can you share anything of personal value with a stranger? It would be several months down the road before we would really talk to each other for the first time. When her goodbye would be absolute. When the house would be empty. When we would need something to fill the silence, something to fill the hole.

That morning I felt obligated as his daughter to go after him. I felt thrown in the middle. But mostly, I just felt sorry for him, because for the first time I was seeing him not as the workaholic tyrant of our home, but as a husband, a father, a person who had let everything that mattered slip through his calloused fingers.

I found him collapsed on the floor in the doorway to their bedroom. His sobs were like nothing I had heard before: deep, choking, uncontrollable gasps. I tentatively eased to the floor beside him and awkwardly wrapped my arms around his heaving body. Helplessly, he accepted my embrace. There were no words. All I knew for certain was that I was certain of nothing anymore.