Mother (50 page)

Mother entered wearing yellow rubber gloves and carrying the dustpan and a bucket of soapy water. She didn’t look at Claire. “I’m just going to clean this up and I’ll be out of your hair, dear.” Her tone was distant, cautious, but not unkind. She bent down and began placing broken glass in the dustpan.

Watching her mother clean up after her filled Claire with gnawing shame. She almost apologized, but was afraid of somehow causing another confrontation.
 

Mother began sopping up the milk. “I owe you an apology, Claire.”

Claire wasn’t sure she’d heard her right. “What?”

“I know better than to get upset. I reacted poorly, and I’m sorry.”

“Mother, I … I’m sorry. It wasn’t your fault.”

Mother turned and gave her a humorless smile, then wagged a gloved finger at her. “It takes two to tango,” she said in a singsong tone. “I’m every bit as much to blame as you.”

Claire felt tears welling.
God, not this again. I’m so tired of the freaking tears.
She bit them back.
 

“It’s hard enough being pregnant, Claire. It’s been a long while since I was in your position, but I remember it well. It’s a difficult time, and I’m afraid I haven’t made it any easier on you. I’m sorry for that.”

“No,” said Claire. “I haven’t been myself.”

“You’re not
supposed
to be yourself right now, dear. Your body is changing in ways it never has before.” She paused and sighed. “While I’ve always admired the work of the Lord, I can’t help thinking He might have ironed the kinks out of this whole procreation process by now. I intend to give Him a thorough talking to when my time comes.” She smiled as she wrung milk from the towel.

Claire laughed. It felt good. She’d rarely seen Mother’s cheeky side, and she liked it. “I guess that’s how they know God is a male.”

“Exactly,” said Mother. “Believe me, some things are going to change when
I
get up there.”

Claire smiled and had no doubt that even in the afterlife, Mother would be trying to take charge. “Did you ever feel … crazy … when you were pregnant, Mother?”

Mother stopped scrubbing. “Of course I did. Every day.”

“I mean, like … really,
truly
crazy.”

“I know exactly what you mean. And the answer is yes. One minute I was up, the next I was down. I’d laugh, cry, and I even became a bit paranoid.”

“Paranoid?” Claire asked eagerly. “How so?”

“Oh, this and that. I thought my friends were talking about me. I was convinced everyone was trying to make things harder for me. I felt unattractive, unlovable. I sometimes saw things that weren’t there.” She resumed scrubbing.

Claire leaned forward. “What do you mean? What things?”

Mother shrugged, her eyes on the task. “Just little things.”

“So … this is
normal
?”

“It was for me.”

“Why don’t they talk about paranoia and feeling crazy in the books and on the websites? There’s no mention of these things at all, and I’d swear I’m seeing things!”

“I don’t think it’s
usual,
which is
not
to say it isn’t
normal,
Claire. Everyone’s pregnancy is different. Some women feel euphoric throughout. Others become clinically depressed. I guess the women in our family get very anxious.” She faced her now, offered a little smile. “But the good news is, it gets better. The first half was the worst of it.” She looked at the floor. “I’m going to give this a couple of hours to dry then I’ll come back with the vacuum and get all the tiny pieces of glass so no one cuts their feet.”

“How long did it last? The, uh, hallucinations?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It was such a long time ago. A couple of months, maybe?” She stood, lifted the bucket, and inspected her work.

“How bad did it get? I mean, what kinds of things did you … see?”

Mother sighed. “That’s enough for now, Claire.” She glanced at the laptop. “And I forbid you to get on the Internet and read about bad pregnancies. It will only make it worse, and you
need
to relax. No more upsetting yourself.”

“But I-”

“No, Claire.” She used her mom voice. “You need to relax. My pregnancies weren’t easy. Yours hasn’t been either. But it does get better from here. That’s all you need to know. And I
mean
it about the Internet. Those sites will only make you anxious, and I think we can both agree that there’s been enough upset for one day. You need to think of the baby now.”

Claire knew it was true. She nodded.

“I’ll be back to vacuum and bring you supper in a couple of hours. Do you need anything else until then?”

“No,” said Claire, thinking,
A new head perhaps? A new set of genes?

Mother smiled, kissed Claire on the forehead, and left the room, her perfume lingering like an unwanted ghost.
 

The little jet turned out to be just what Paul hoped for, and Jason had emailed him the mechanic’s report and a load of detailed photos before going for a steak with Jake Fairview. After, Jake wanted to hang out and watch football in a sports bar, but Jason had begged off. All he’d wanted was to go back to his room, call Claire and read more of Timothy’s journals. He hoped Jake wouldn’t stay out too late - they had an early morning takeoff, because a fast-moving snowstorm was due to hit Denver before noon.

He’d hung up with Claire half an hour before, relieved. While she sounded a little fragile, she seemed more like her old self and even said she and her mother were getting along. Prissy was making one of Claire’s favorites
 
- roast chicken with mashed potatoes - and they were going to have to have dinner together. Claire sounded, if not happy, okay.

This was a great relief, because he hadn’t been able to get the journal off his mind ever since he’d read Timothy’s entry about “boy stains.” The way Prissy humiliated her son was unconscionable, far too personal, and set off alarm bells in Jason’s mind. The rest of that particular journal had mostly been full of sonnets to Steffie, rants about teachers, and a few drawings of Prissy in the form of a gargoyle. Tim had been a good artist, and it was easy for Jason to see his mother-in-law’s features on the creature. He’d asked Claire if she’d seen them, but she hadn’t. She wanted to though, and he promised to show her when he got back. In turn, she thanked him for taking an interest and was happy he’d slipped a few journals in his overnight bag. He pulled off his shoes, undid his tie, and stretched out on the bed, smiling to himself and looking forward to seeing his wife tomorrow. He’d be there in time to bring home orange chicken from Wokamundo - Claire couldn’t get enough right now.

He nabbed another journal off the nightstand. This one was from Tim’s sophomore year and he could tell by the way it opened that Claire hadn’t cracked it yet.

He flipped past a couple of blank pages then found hard, angry-looking writing, cramped and small.
 

 
I will never forgive her.

Of all the things she’s done to me, this is the worst. It’s happened before, but that was a long time ago. I’d hoped it would stop when I turned thirteen, but I’m fifteen now, and the Bad Punishment happened again.
 

I was in my room getting ready for church. I gave myself lots of time, and dug out one of the
Penthouse
magazines Paul gave me from his dad’s collection. I keep them in the back of my closet, beneath a bunch of shoeboxes, where Mother wouldn’t look. Ever since she barged in on me in the shower, I only look at the mags in my closet. And I do more than look at them in there. I do what every normal guy likes to do and I don’t even feel guilty about it. It’s not a sin, that’s bullshit.

So that’s what I was doing this morning in my closet. I didn’t hear Mother come into my room, but as soon as I was done, before I had a chance to clean up, there she was, staring at me - I think she’d been there a long time, listening. Anyway, she screamed at me that she’s suspected I’ve been doing this for years and asked if that was true.

I didn’t say anything. It’s not like I could deny it. I had my pants down, a dirty magazine in one hand, and a wad of wet Kleenex in my other.

She slapped the magazine away and yanked me out by my hair before I could even pull up my pants. She hit me on the bare ass with the magazine and threw me on the bed on my stomach and was shrieking about me being a dirty boy, and how dare I do such a thing on Sunday, and that I needed to be cleansed - from the inside out. She made me give her the dirty tissue. I don’t know what she did with it, but she took it, and told me to leave my pants down and wait for her. I don’t know why I did, I should have run away, but that would only make it worse. And I was just so embarrassed I couldn’t move, I guess. I knew exactly what was coming, too.

Outside the church, there’s a faucet where parishioners can get water that’s been blessed by the priests. Mother has always kept a big bottle of it in the cupboard that no one’s allowed to touch. She says it’s for ‘emergencies,’ but it’s what she uses for the Bad Punishment.

I should have fought her off. I should have punched her in her ugly face, kicked her in the groin and twisted her fucking tits off. But I didn’t. I just let her do it. She took me into the bathroom - made me walk with my pants down, had me bend over the bathtub, then filled me up with so much holy water that my insides felt like they were going to explode. Then she made me hold it while I said twenty-five Hail Marys and while I did, she kept slapping my balls, yanking them, and flipping them and saying they were the devil’s playthings. I wouldn’t show her my pain so she twisted and squeezed them until I screamed. She stopped and made me finish the Hail Marys before she let me go to the toilet to squirt it out. Then she made me do it again. Twenty-five Hail Marys with my ass full of holy water - and when she ran out of that, she started using really cold water from the tub faucet. Then I had to do it again, and again, until I’d said one hundred Hail Marys and made four trips to the toilet.

She yelled at me for making her late for church. At least she let me stay home - she said I was too dirty to go - but then she said she was going to drive me to church after the service, and I had to confess my sin to Father Dave. I wasn’t to mention the enema, of course, just that I’d masturbated on a Sunday before church. She dug out all my magazines and made me watch her tear them up and burn them while she told me I was disgusting, those women were disgusting, and the devil put a curse on women’s vaginas and that’s why men liked them so much. But only weak men succumbed. Men who were strong in the Lord understood that a woman’s vagina was created for procreation, not pleasure. She’s so full of shit. I hate her fucking guts. I wish she’d die.

So she drove me to church and told Father Dave I needed to make a confession. I did, but I didn’t keep her secret. I told him what Mother had done, too. He acted really funny about it, but didn’t really say anything except that I’d already done my penance and was forgiven. Then he asked to speak to Mother while I waited in the car. I know priests can’t repeat confessions, but Mother was gone so long I got worried that he might be telling her. When she came back out, I expected her to be mad, but she wasn’t.

She didn’t say anything the whole way home, and when we got there, she just made me go up to my room and read Scriptures.
 

That was Sunday. It’s Wednesday today and it hasn’t come up again.

I hate her. I wonder what Father Dave said to her. I hope he told her she was wrong. I hope he told her SHE had sinned too. I hope he told her she was going to hell.
 

And I hope she does.

“Holy shit.” Jason set the journal aside and rose, grabbing a bottle of water from the ice bucket. He wished it was a beer. “Holy shit.”
Priscilla Martin is a child abuser.
He wondered if Claire knew about the Bad Punishment, but doubted it - she hadn’t read that far yet.
But what does she know? What does she remember?
All at once he felt like a monster for making light of her hatred of her mother.
My God, what did she do to my wife? That woman will never lay eyes on our son!

Jason sipped his water, looking out on the city lights beneath the lowering sky.
What did she do to her?
He’d never felt so far from home. He texted Jake that he needed to be ready to leave for the airport by five a.m. to make sure they avoided the storm, then as he was about to call Claire, his cell rang in his hand. It was Babs Vandercooth.

There’s Something about Priscilla

“Six in the corner pocket,” Father Andy told Dave Flannigan.
 

The old priest looked at him from across the table and smiled. “You’ll never make that shot.”

“Have faith.” Andy took the shot and the balls bounced and went in the wrong direction.

Dave chuckled. “You’re lucky you didn’t tear the felt. Let me show you how an old pro does it.”

He missed, too. “Another beer? Maybe a sandwich? I have pastrami. It’s getting to be that time.”

“That sounds great.”

Andy followed Dave into his small, neat kitchen and sat at the equally small dining table. “I had lunch with Babs Vandercooth today.”

Dave handed him a Killian’s Red and he twisted off the lid. Tangy mist curled into his nostrils. It felt good. And tasted better.

“Babs without Priscilla Martin?” Dave said over his shoulder. “What kind of cheese?”

“Whatever you’re having. Yes, it seems they’ve had a falling out.”

Dave laughed. “Has hell frozen over?”

“Possibly. But I think Babs has simply had enough. She’s running for president of the Auxiliary.” He filled in details while Dave made the sandwiches and put them in the oven to toast.
 

“I’m glad to hear all this,” Dave said as he brought the food to the table. “I always liked Babs, but even when she was young, she seemed afraid of her own shadow - especially when it came to Prissy.”

“True,” Andy said. “I’m curious. When Claire Martin - Carlene back then - was little, was she something of a hell raiser?”